LETTERS 

OF  THE 

REV.  J.  B.  MOZLEY,  D.  D. 


LETTERS 


OF  THE 


v.  J.   B.  vMOZ  LEY,  D 

LATE  CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH,  AND  RKGIUS  PROFESSOR  OF 
DIVINITY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 


EDITED  BY 

HIS  SISTER 


E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  CO. 

PUBLISHERS  BOOKSELLERS  AND  IMPORTERS 
39  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET 
MDCCCLXXXV 


Digitized  by 

the  Internet  Archive 

in  2015 

https://archive.org/details/lettersofrevjbmoOOmozl_0 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


In  preparing  the  present  volume  the  Editor  admits 
to  having  included  in  her  selection  a  few  letters  of 
a  more  private  character  than  are  often  given  to  the 
world,  and  to  having  some  misgivings  in  so  doing.  If 
it  is  a  grave  mistake,  an  apology  will  do  little  to 
excuse  it  ;  but  in  the  course  of  selection  it  has  con- 
stantly seemed  that  the  more  intimate  the  letter  the 
more  justice  is  done  to  writer  and  reader. 

A  series  of  letters  in  chronological  order  insensibly 
grows  into  a  biography  without  any  such  design  in 
the  selector.  Perhaps  by  admitting  letters  of  the 
character  indicated,  the  nearest  approach  to  a  true 
biography  is  reached  that  the  life  of  a  retired  scholar 
can  furnish. 

The  Editor's  warm  thanks  are  due  to  those  friends 
of  Dr.  Mozley  who  in  a  few  cases  have  allowed  their 
letters  to  be  inserted,  as  throwing  light  upon  his  own. 

A.  M. 


Barro\v-on-Trext, 

September,  1884. 


INTRODUCTION. 


When  a  friend  of  Dr.  Mozley's  maturer  years — one  to  whose 
judgment  all  would  defer — suggested  to  the  possessor  of  his 
papers  and  home  correspondence  the  publication  of  a  selection 
of  his  letters,  saying,  that  having  had  occasion  to  look  over  old 
letters,  his  stood  out  among  them  as  full  of  force  and  interest ; 
the  idea,  which  had  never  suggested  itself  before,  became  at 
once  interesting;  finding  encouragement  in  the  fact  of  the 
large  number  of  his  letters  that  have  been  preserved.  The 
habit,  in  some  members  of  his  family,  of  keeping  letters,  has 
preserved  James  Mozley's  letters  to  his  home  through  the 
various  shifts  and  changes  that  time  brings  about :  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  life  and  death  sometimes  laying  question  and  answer, 
comment  and  criticism,  side  by  side  in  startling  conjunction. 

In  the  attempt  to  form  a  collection  of  letters  which  are  to 
illustrate  a  character  as  well  as  a  course  of  events,  the  difficulty 
starts  at  the  outset ;  how  or  where  to  begin  :  for  it  is  impossible 
not  to  feel,  when  a  character  is  looked  into,  how  much  the 
early  childhood  of  a  mind  affects  its  whole  subsequent  develop- 
ment. Those  who  care  for  letters  in  this  light,  and  not  merely 
as  records  of  events,  do  care  to  know  under  what  circumstances 
and  influences  the  manner  of  writing  has  been  formed ;  and  if 
these  are  to  be  shown,  it  must  be  by  means  outside  the  writer's 
own  knowledge  and  consciousness.  Advantages  are  subtle 
things.  Great  men's  sons  are  supposed  to  be  benefited  largely 
by  early  initiation  into  great  ideas  ;  but  it  must  constantly  be 


2 


Introduction. 


the  fact  that  the  father's  greatness,  and  occupation  in  great 
affairs  remove  his  children  from  his  indirect  influence — the 
most  powerful  of  all  influences.  It  is  the  private  family -life, 
in  which  each  member  follows  his  course  in  obedience  to  neces- 
sary rules  of  order  and  convenience,  that  often  furnishes  the 
advantages  we  speak  of.  James  Mozley,  as  a  child,  heard  pub- 
lic matters  discussed  before  him  in  the  family  circle.  His 
father  was  public-spirited  and  strong  and  undoubting  in  his 
convictions.  He  was  a  Tory,  and  believed  Tory  principles  the 
safety  of  the  State.  Men  may  change  opinions  thus  imbibed 
as  time  goes  on — that  is,  they  may  think  for  themselves  ;  but  it 
is  a  good  thing  for  the  heart  and  intellect  to  have  been  zealous 
for  a  cause  while  yet  too  young  to  understand  all  its  bearings  ; 
it  is  a  good  thing  not  to  start  life  by  being  eclectic,  good 
to  feel  one  of  a  party ;  especially — and  this  is  one  advantage 
of  a  private  station — to  have  its  interests  at  heart  without  a 
thought  or  dream  of  personal  or  family  advantage.  Intelligent 
children  who  have  to  listen,  not  talk,  while  their  parents  and 
elders  discuss  general,  public  topics  and  public  men,  learn  to 
think  about  them  in  a  different  spirit,  and  with  different  con- 
sequences from  those  children  who  are  allowed  to  interpose 
and  lower  the  subject  to  their  level ;  who  are,  perhaps, 
encouraged  to  give  their  opinion  on  subjects  above  them. 
Public  events,  great  questions,  startling  incidents  take  much 
more  effect  on  the  mind  of  children,  if  their  interest  in  them 
does  not  exhale  in  chatter,  in  the  liberty  of  interruption, 
perhaps  in  argument.  Deference  to  authority,  the  sense  of 
ignorance,  should  come  before  criticism.  In  this  spirit  public 
questions  come  to  the  child  with  the  feeling  of  duty  connected 
with  them,  and  also  with  what  one  may  venture  to  call  the 
wholesome  sense  of  partisanship ;  of  being  on  the  right  side 
with  the  nobler  actors  and  thinkers  of  the  day. 

It  happened,  too,  that  in  this  family  circle  letters  were  a 
great  interest.     Any  member  of  it,  away  from  home,  was 


Introduction. 


3 


expected  to  write  a  report  of  his  doings.  Postage  in  those  days 
was  heavy.  It  was  a  matter  of  conscience  to  fill  the  letter,  to 
make  it  as  full  and  interesting  as  time  and  circumstances  would 
allow ;  thus  letters  were  a  social  power,  as  much  so  as  personal 
intercourse.  They  were  read  aloud  for  the  general  benefit, 
when  their  subjects  permitted  it.  The  family  was  fortunate  in 
some  clever  correspondents;  friends,  living  in  a  remote  par- 
sonage, with  the  post  reaching  them  but  twice  a  week,  but 
full  of  the  keenest  interest  in  what  was  going  in  the  world  and 
in  the  new  books  coming  out ;  with  an  insight,  too,  into  bright 
social  life,  as  well  as  the  religious  thought  of  the  day.  Looking 
back  forty  years,  Dr.  Mozley  wrote,  on  reading  an  old  letter 
from  this  parsonage,  sent  to  him  to  recall  some  incident :  "  It 
was  quite  a  treat  to  read  a  letter  of  Mrs.  Wayland's  ;  such  per- 
fection of  statement,  the  thought  so  full  and  clear."  His  eldest 
sister  Jane,  who  died  young,  and  to  whom  many  of  these  letters 
were  addressed,  wrote  good  letters,  and  was  complimented  on 
her  Eichardsonian  style.  If  it  be  asked  how  the  art  of  letter- 
writing  may  be  fostered,  perhaps  here  may  be  found  some 
answer,  though  in  James  Mozley,  of  course,  the  gift  was  there. 
With  him,  if  he  took  a  pen  in  hand,  it  was  to  think ;  whether 
the  subject  were  persons  or  things.  A  name  suggested  thought 
about  the  bearer  of  that  name.  His  earliest  letters  show  the 
beginning  of  the  habit ;  but  naturally,  when  a  boy,  he  accepted 
the  judgment  of  others  ;  and  many  of  the  following  letters 
are  given  more  as  records  of  Oxford  in  his  early  days,  than 
for  any  felicity  of  thought  or  expression.  As  time  goes  on 
nothing  is  more  entirely  his  own  than  the  judgment,  whether 
of  passing  events  or  of  character,  that  is  found  in  his  letters, 
to  whomsoever  addressed. 

James  Mozley  was  born  at  Gainsborough  in  Lincolnshire, 
September  15,  1813;  his  father  removing  his  family  and 
business  to  Derby  in  1815.  In  seeking  records  of  James 
in  the  early  family  correspondence,  it  is  really  necessary  to 


4 


Introduction. 


include  other  names  in  the  revival  of  so  distant  a  past.  As 
the  eighth  child  of  eleven,  he  has  to  take  his  chance  of 
mention  in  the  letters  of  the  more  important  members  of  the 
family.  Thus  his  name  closes  the  mother's  happy  letter  to 
her  eldest  daughter  at  school  in  Kensington  in  1820,  who  had 
written,  with  great  depth  of  feeling,  an  account  of  her  con- 
firmation by  the  Archbishop,  and  the  previous  examinations 
and  preparation : — 

"  The  impression  your  confirmation  appears  to  have  made 
on  your  mind,  could  not  but  afford  us  the  most  heartfelt 
pleasure.  It  is  a  ceremony  too  little  thought  of  in  the  present 
day.  ...  It  is  now  five  years  since  there  was  a  confirmation 
in  Derby.  James  was  by  when  I  read  your  letter;  when  I 
had  finished,  he  exclaimed  with  great  earnestness,  '  I  should 
like  to  see  Thomas  a  Becket,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.' " 

In  a  later  letter  (let  it  be  borne  in  mind  it  is  a  young  mother, 
married  at  seventeen,  writing  to  her  daughter  at  school) : — 

"  We  have  given  up  all  thoughts  of  sending  Charles  to 
Merchant  Taylors'— he  is  too  old  to  be  on  the  foundation,  and 
consequently  cannot  derive  any  future  advantage  from  it.  We 
are  told  if  a  boy  at  eight  years  old  could  read  the  Latin  Testament 
and  Ovid's  Epistles,  he  might  stand  a  good  chance  at  Merchant 
Taylors'.  I  fear  this  is  what  none  of  my  family  will  ever 
accomplish.  Mine  are  not  early  blossoms.  Perhaps  James 
might  be  forced  to  this,  but  I  think  no  probable  advantage 
could  compensate  for  the  risk  of  sending  so  young  a  boy  from 
home.  From  eight  to  twelve  is  a  time  in  which  a  great  deal 
of  good  or  bad  may  be  instilled  into  a  child,  and  I  fear  he 
is  more  likely  to  acquire  the  bad  amongst  boys,  unless  he 
have  some  fixed  principles  of  his  own  to  make  head  against 
evil  examples." 

Probably  it  was  because  his  elder  brother  Charles  was 
already  placed  there,  that  James  at  nine  years  old — a  "  pretty 
little  fellow,"  as  his  brother  in  after  years  recalled  him — 
was  sent  to  Grantham  Grammar  School,  then  under  a  Mr. 


Introduction. 


5 


Andrews.  Whatever  control  of  temper  Mr.  Andrews  ever 
possessed — and  my  brother  Charles  said  the  boys  always 
regarded  his  punishments  not  as  judicial,  but  as  ebullitions  of 
temper — was  now  rapidly  on  the  wane,  and  circumstances,  and 
something  in  James  himself,  were  adverse  to  a  good  mutual 
understanding.  A  school-fellow,  looking  back,  after  reading 
of  Dr.  Mozley's  death,  says,  in  writing  to  my  brother  Arthur, 
"  I  remember  him  well ;  he  was  very  sensitive,  and  our  head- 
master, an  excitable  man,  did  not  treat  him  judiciously : " 
going  on  to  speak  of  his  sharp,  sarcastic  tones.  On  the  same 
occasion  of  the  revival  of  old  memories,  another  school-fellow, 
then  in  failing  health,  recalled  him,  as  my  sister  Maria  writes 
in  1878  :— 

"  He  asked  me  if  James  was  living,  and  I  told  him  we  had 
just  lost  him.  '  Oh,  then  it  was  his  death  I  saw  in  the  papers  ' 
(he  had  not  been  sure  it  was  the  same  clever  little  fellow 
he  remembered  so  well  at  school).  '  He  was  such  a  clever 
little  fellow;  he  knew  more  at  ten  than  any  of  us,  but 
the  boys  bullied  him ;  they  were  jealous  of  him,  and  I — .' 
'  Well,'  I  said,  '  I  hope  you  did  not  bully  him  ? '  '  No  !  no  ! 
I  tried  to  protect  him  from  them — you  see  they  were  jealous, 
and  he  was  such  a  clever  little  fellow  ! ' " 

These  memories  throw  light  on  a  passage  in  his  letter  to 
me  when  at  school  near  London ;  showing  what  he  meant 
by  "  masters." 

Grantham,  April  1,  1826. 
I  often  think  how  much  more  agreeably  you  spend  your 
time  than  I  do  mine,  since  I 'm  surrounded  on  every  side  by 
masters.  So  I  think  I  may  complain  in  the  words  of  the 
Psalmist,  "  many  oxen  are  come  about  me,  fat  bulls  of  Basan 
close  me  in  on  every  side."  .  .  .  School  boys  have  very  seldom 
much  news  to  tell.  We  hear  just  as  much  about  banks  break- 
ing and  failures,  as  if  we  were  shut  up  in  the  Black  Hole  of 
Calcutta. 


6 


Introduction. 


At  the  end  of  1 82  6, 1  his  mother  writes  to  James:  "It gave  me 
great  pleasure  to  know  you  were  in  the  First  Class  in  Latin. 
We  have  no  doubt  you  will  be  so  in  Greek  soon."  It  was  this 
forwardness  that  no  doubt  suggested  to  his  brother  Tom  at 
Oxford,  the  idea  of  his  trying  for  a  Scholarship  at  Corpus, 
when  only  thirteen — an  idea  most  delightful  to  the  schoolboy, 
which  stimulated  his  mind  to  great  exertion,  and  would  make 
school  life  more  irksome  to  him  than  ever.  This  proposal 
coming  from  a  brother,  an  undergraduate,  may  account  for  the 
growth  of  irritation  on  Mr.  Andrews'  part ;  he  might  feel  him- 
self, as  the  time  drew  near,  second  in  estimation  and  authority, 
and  be  tempted  to  revenge  himself,  as  his  position  enabled  him 
to  do.  I  give  the  correspondence  between  the  brothers  as  at 
least  characteristic  of  both,  and  perhaps  a  little  out  of  the 
common  in  fraternal  correspondence. 

In  the  spring  of  1827,  James  writes  to  his  brother,  on  hearing 
from  home  that  it  was  settled  he  was  to  try  for  the  Corpus 
Scholarship : — 

March  30,  1827. 
Dear  Tom, — This  letter,  I  assure  you,  however  selfish  you 
may  think  me,  is  entirely  for  my  own  interest.    I  have  just 
now  been  in  to  Mr.  Andrews,  and  what  he  told  me  was  this : 
that  I  was  to  do  as  much  Homer  as  ever  I  could,  that  I  was 

1  The  year  1826  is  distinguished  in  the  home  correspondence  by  the  intro- 
duction of  a  name  that  has  had  a  large  family  influence  as  well  as  an  influence 
since  widely  felt  in  the  world.  James  Mozley's  brother,  Thomas,  the  third  of 
the  six  brothers,  went  from  Charterhouse  to  Oriel  in  the  spring  of  1825. 
The  first  mention  of  the  name  comes  without  any  addition  or  comment : 
"  Jelf,  my  tutor,  is  gone  to  Germany  with  £900  a  year  ;  Newman  is  appointed 
in  his  place."  Then  April  28,  1826,  to  his  mother  :  "  I  have  at  last  had  an 
interview  with  my  new  tutor,  Mr.  Newman,  who  gave  me  much  good  advice 
on  the  subject  of  themes,  and  gave  me  a  manuscript  treatise  on  composition, 
written  by  Whately,  who  is  a  famous  man  here."  And  again,  in  the  same 
year,  before  the  Long  Vacation,  writing  to  his  father :  "  Newman,  my  new- 
tutor,  has  been  very  attentive  and  obliging,  and  has  given  me  abundance  of 
good  advice.  He  has  requested  me  to  consider  carefully  what  information 
and  instruction  I  require  for  my  course  of  reading,  and  also  to  determine 
what  books  to  take  up,  and  he  will  have  a  little  conversation  with  me  before 
the  vacation." 


Introduction. 


7 


to  learn,  and  that  well,  as  much  Horace  as  I  could ;  I  then 
mentioned  the  theme — that  that  would  go  a  great  way  if  written 
well.  He  said  I  might  do  a  theme  two  or  three  times  a  week, 
and  also  said  that  if  I  did  it  without  grammatical  mistake,  it 
was  all  they  could  expect.  Now  although  Mr.  Andrews  must 
know  what  I  ought  to  do  very  well,  yet  I  confide  in  you  as 
much,  if  not  more  than  in  him.  So  I  beg  you  will  write  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  tell  me  all  you  know  about  it.  I  think 
that  Greek  verses  are  to  be  composed  by  those  that  try.  I 
shall  therefore  be  required  to  know  how  to  do  them  in  some 
way  or  other.  I  have  not  done  a  single  Greek  verse  in  my 
whole  life,  much  less  an  epigram,  which  I  think  is  the  hardest 
thing  to  be  done  that  can  be.  I  also  told  Mr.  Andrews  that 
Euripides  and  Demosthenes,  and  all  kinds  of  works  were  set 
before  us.  But  he  said  that  the  ground-work  was  the  chief  thing 
with  me,  and  that  if  they  perceived  that  I  knew  Homer  and 
Horace  well,  they  would  of  course  think  that  in  time  I  should 
be  able  to  do  any  other  book  well.  Now  while  I  am  writing 
this  letter,  I 'm  thinking — "  Let  me  see  ;  Virgil,  Horace,  Homer, 
Cicero,  Demosthenes,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Menander !  How 
can  I  be  able  to  know  all  these  ?"  But  that  you  may  know  that  I 
have  learnt  something  from  reading  Xenophon,  I  remember  that 
once  Cyrus  forbade  his  soldiers  the  use  of  too  many  weapons 
(taking  away  the  arrow  and  javelin,  and  leaving  only  the  sword), 
for  fear  that  having  so  many  things  to  attend  to  they  should 
know  very  little  of  the  use  of  any  of  them.  It  is  the  same,  I 
think,  with  me ;  for  if  I  tried  to  learn  something  of  all  these 
books,  I  am  afraid  I  should  know  very  little  of  any.  But 
when  you  write  to  me  you  will  tell  all  that  I 'm  to  do — how 
to  write  my  theme,  and  how  to  make  verses,  both  Latin  and 
Greek,  particularly  epigrams :  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea 
how  to  put  the  salt,  as  they  call  it,  in  epigrams.  I  shall  also 
want  some  books  to  tell  me  everything  I  ought  to  have,  and 
what  you  think  I  can't  get  here  send  in  a  parcel  from  Oxford. 
I  am  asking  a  great  deal  too  much  of  you.  Hear,  then,  the 
highest  degree  of  my  selfishness :  I  should  like  to  go  up  to 
Oxford  about  a  week  before  the  time.  I  would  then  write  you 
a  theme,  and  what  you  might  think  proper ;  yo\i  would  also 


8  Introduction. 


open  a  Horace  and  Homer,  and  other  books  in  a  place  or  two, 
and  see  how  I  get  on.  If  you  think  well  of  this,  I  wish  you 
would  write  to  mamma  about  it,  but  if  not  I  '11  drop  it,  but 
not  without  some  reluctance ;  write,  however,  what  books  I 'm 
to  read.  I  should  like  to  have  a  Greek  Gradus,  if  there  is 
such  a  book.  .  .  I  have  not  the  slightest  expectation  of  gaining 
this,  but  I  should  like  to  get  through  my  examination  as  well 
as  possible. — I  remain,  your  affectionate  brother, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  Mr.  James  Mozley,  the  Eev.  Andrews,  Grantham, 

Lincolnshire. 

Oriel,  Friday,  April  27,  1827. 

Dear  James, — I  am  sorry  I  could  not  answer  your  letter 
earlier;  you  must  take  up  with  the  excuse  of  my  College 
Collections,  which  have  really  occupied  all  my  time.  In  the 
first  place,  let  me  recommend  you  to  acquire,  if  you  can,  a  less 
boyish  hand ;  if  you  set  up  for  a  forward  boy  you  must  have 
a  forward  hand.  I  have  had  a  letter  from  home  in  which  they 
ask  my  advice  about  your  coming  to  Oxford  a  week  before  the 
time.  I  have  assented,  so  I  suppose  you  will  come,  but 
remember  you  must  expect  to  be  kept  very  close  till  the 
examination ;  for  a  week's  wandering  among  fine  buildings  and 
such  novelties  will  have  a  dreadful  effect  in  driving  all  your 
learning  and  your  verses  out  of  your  head.  If  you  can't  see 
how  this  is  the  case  you  must  take  it  for  granted.  I  know  it 
is  the  case.  I  suppose  Mr.  Andrews  is  in  the  main  right  in 
what  he  says  about  the  theme ;  but  a  theme  must  contain 
something,  and  a  great  deal  more  than  the  themes  you  gave 
me  last  Christmas.  In  an  English  theme  at  least  they  expect 
more  than  grammatical  accuracy. 

The  best,  the  easiest,  and  most  natural  way  of  acquiring 
ideas  is  reflecting  on  all  the  facts  you  hear  or  read  of,  all  the 
incidents  either  in  poetry  or  history,  and  trying  to  draw  a 
moral  from  them — that  is,  considering  of  what  common  failing, 
or  propensities,  or  what  virtue  are  they  instances.  This  will 
appear  at  first  quite  childishly  easy,  but  if  you  store  up  these 
morals  in  your  head,  with  the  instances  from  which  you  drew 


Introduction. 


9 


them,  you  will  turn  them  to  great  account  when  you  happen  to 
have  a  thesis  given  you  on  the  subjects.  The  same  method 
will  do  for  getting  a  stock  of  similes.  I  mean  that  whenever 
you  see  or  hear  anything  beautiful  or  curious  in  the  changes  of 
nature  to  consider  what  actions  or  passions  of  mankind  may 
be  compared  to  them.  This  will  at  first  appear  stupid  work, 
but  remember  that  although,  when  your  thoughts  are  engaged 
on  some  interesting  fact,  it  will  seem  rather  dry  labour  search- 
ing for  a  moral  application,  yet  when  you  are  writing  a  moral 
essay  you  would  find  the  interesting  fact  come  in  much  to 
your  satisfaction,  and  appear  very  beautiful.  But  it  is  not  only 
from  the  facts  of  Nature,  etc.,  that  you  should  draw  similes. 
The  ancient  mythology  and  fabulous  history  is  a  very  fertile 
field.  Indeed,  they  are  even  supposed  by  some  to  be  allegorical 
representations  of  moral  truths.  Lord  Bacon  wrote  a  book  to 
prove  this,  and,  whether  he  succeeded  or  not,  he  showed  great 
ingenuity  in  applying  moral  truths  to  them,  and  the  consequence 
was  (mind  James),  that  one  of  the  greatest  beauties  of  his 
essays  and  other  writings  is  bringing  in  constantly  beautiful 
similes  from  those  fables.  As  instances  of  what  I  have  said, 
if,  when  reading  of  Narcissus,  I  added :  "  Thus  the  man  who  is 
conceited  of  big  talents,  by  doing  nothing  but  admire  himself 
sinks  into  insignificance  ;"  or  in  the  story  of  Atalanta,  if  I  said  : 
"  Thus  the  great  mind,  by  stooping  down  to  the  temptations  of 
riches  or  honour,  fails  of  the  nobler  end  of  existence;"  or  if  in 
reading  the  story  of  Memnon's  Statue  (I  mean  the  music  that 
always  sounded  at  sunrise),  I  said :  "  Thus  all  the  types  and 
prophecies  of  the  Jewish  dispensation  remained  silent  and 
obscure  till  the  light  of  the  Christian  revelation  fell  upon  them" 
— all  this  you  would  think  very  dull  prosing.  But  it  would 
come  in  very  beautifully,  when  you  were  writing  about  a  con- 
ceited man,  to  say  "he  becomes  an  intellectual  Narcissus, 
pining  away  in  the  comtemplation  of  his  own  merits;"  or,  in 
talking  of  the  desire  of  fame,  to  say,  "  like  Atalanta,  he  loses 
the  race  by  stooping  for  the  golden  apple  ;"  or,  lastly,  you  would 
think  a  dissertation  on  the  Jewish  rites  somewhat  enlivened  by 
this  simile :  "  They  are  like  the  statue  of  Memnon,  which  con- 
tained some  musical  chords  so  artificially  wrought  that  when 


IO 


Introduction. 


the  morning  light  dawned  on  the  statue  they  were  no  longer 
secret  and  silent,  etc."  If  I  were  not  in  a  hurry,  and  more- 
over, confined  for  room,  I  could  give  you  a  thousand  such. 

As  for  Epigrams,  don't  trouble  your  head  much  about  them  ; 
but  if  you  happen  to  see  a  good  English  one,  or  happen  to  hear 
a  good  repartee,  or  a  good  story,  it  would  be  useful  practice  to 
put  it  into  a  two-line  or  four-line  Greek  Epigram.  But  don't 
make  a  regular  exercise  if  it ;  depend  on  it,  the  Examiners  don't 
go  by  Epigrams.  I  should  think,  as  Mr.  Andrews  says,  they 
go  by  Homer  and  Horace  more  than  anything  else.  You 
should  prefer  getting  up  a  little  perfectly  and  grammatically  to 
a  great  deal  tolerably.  Because,  of  course,  the  examiners  make 
great  allowances  when  you  have  not  read  the  passage  (which 
they  always  inquire),  and  you  would  be  rather  mortified  if, 
when  the  passage  was  pointed  out,  you  found  that  you  had 
read  it,  and  therefore  could  not  get  the  credit  of  a  first  sight 
construe,  but  had  not  read  it  enough  to  construe  the  better  for 
it.  Besides,  remember  that  closely  studying  a  small  quantity 
will,  of  course,  of  the  two  give  you  the  greater  grammatical 
knowledge,  and  a  better  memory  for  the  words,  and,  conse- 
quently, better  prepare  you  for  first-sight  construing.  Most  of 
the  books  you  mention  are  in  the  same  dialect,  so  that  learning 
one  book  must  enable  you  to  read  the  others.  After  every 
lesson  recall  all  the  words  and  new  constructions,  and  you  are 
going  on  all  right. 

So  far  from  sending  a  Greek  Gradus,  I  strongly  advise  you 
never  to  use  a  Latin  one — only  when  you  cannot  possibly 
find  out  the  quantity  any  other  way;  never  for  any  other 
purpose.  I  would  collect  all  the  words  of  difficult  quantity 
I  could  think  of,  look  them  out  in  the  gradus,  and  learn 
off  all  the  lines  quoted  as  authority,  or  else  any  line  you  meet 
with  in  your  reading.  You  will  thus  have  a  gradus  in  your 
head ;  and  remember  in  the  Corpus  examination  you  will  be 
locked  up  in  a  room,  with  nothing  but  pen,  ink,  and  paper.  I 
would  also  strongly  advise  you  to  use  your  dictionary  as  little 
as  possible.  Scaliger,  one  of  the  greatest  scholars  that  ever 
lived,  used  neither  lexicon  nor  dictionary ;  but  if,  after  long 
trying,  he  could  not  find  out  the  meaning  of  the  word  by  its 


Introduction. 


context,  he  kept  it  in  his  head  till  he  found  the  word  again, 
and  again  tried  it  by  its  contexts,  and  so  on,  till  he  discovered  the 
meaning.  I  would  advise  you  to  learn  by  heart  two  or  three 
hundred  lines  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and  when  you  are  writing 
in  those  languages,  and  in  want  of  a  word  to  express  your 
meaning,  run  over  these  pieces  (let  them  be  prose  as  well  as 
verse),  till  you  find  a  word.  You  will  find  this  difficult  at  first, 
but  it  will  gradually  become  an  easy  substitute  for  either 
gradus  or  dictionary.  Go  on  the  principle  of  keeping  as  much 
in  your  head  as  possible,  and  trusting  nothing  to  books  and 
paper.  I  assure  you,  James,  you  have  a  good  chance.  I  know 
several  instances  of  great  boys  coming  from  the  first  forms  of 
their  schools  and  being  beaten  by  some  sharp  little  fellow  from 
the  lower  forms,  whom  they  had  before  laughed  at.  If  the 
great  boys  you  talk  of  are  as  old  as  seventeen,  they  must  show 
something  very  extraordinary,  or  they  have  not  much  chance. 
— Yours  affectionately, 

Thomas  Mozley. 

Oriel,  17th  May  1827. 
Dear  James,—  I  have  delayed  answering  your  letter  longer 
than  I  intended,  but  I  think  it  would  do  you  no  harm  to  leave 
you  to  your  first  instructions  some  time  before  I  send  any 
more.  I  am  afraid  you  are  learning  too  much  by  heart.  I 
would  advise  you  to  learn  no  more,  but  frequently  run  over 
what  you  have  already  in  your  head,  and  use  it  instead  of  a 
dictionary,  till  you  have  every  word  at  a  moment's  notice. 
Thus,  when  you  have  to  translate  anything  into  Latin  or  Greek 
prose  or  verse,  and  come  to  a  difficulty  for  want  of  words, 
immediately  consider  in  what  passage  which  you  have  read  or 
learnt  would  these  words  be  probably  used.  It  is  from  not 
adopting  this  practice— I  mean  the  practice  of  ranging  over  your 
stores  in  search  of  good  words  and  expressions — that  so  many 
men  have  read  half  the  books  in  the  Latin  language,  and  yet 
can  scarcely  find  words  to  express  the  simplest  idea.  There 
is,  I  think,  no  better  plan  of  learning  to  write  Latin  than 
translating  loosely  into  English  each  day  about  a  dozen  lines  of 
Cicero,  laying  your  translation  by  for  a  week  and  then  re- 


Introdtution. 


translating  it  into  Latin,  and  afterwards  carefully  comparing 
your  Latin  with  Cicero's  original ;  but  remember  this  will  be 
of  little  use  if  you  do  not  store  up  in  your  memory  each  day 
the  differences  between  your  words  and  expressions  and 
Cicero's,  the  probable  reasons  why  his  are  better,  and  the 
general  rules  which  you  can  discover  by  examining  Cicero ;  and 
if  you  do  not  each  day  consider  what  assistance  you  can  derive 
from  your  former  labours.  Do  not  omit  this  trouble  at  any 
rate, — if  you  find  it  too  much  with  twelve  lines  translate  only 
six.  On  reading  over  your  letter  I  cannot  help  thinking  you 
are  learning  by  heart  too  much ;  certainly  too  much  for  apply- 
ing to  it  all  the  rules  I  have  mentioned  above.  Kemember  it  is 
a  thing  of  the  most  vital  importance  that  you  should  continue 
to  attach  a  pleasure  to  your  studies ;  that  you  should  think 
of  them  not  only  in  school  but  in  play  hours  and  in  bed. 
Whatever  a  person  forces  himself  frequently  to  tliink  of,  he 
will  soon  like. 

As  for  your  themes  I  have  already  said  much  on  the 
subject :  but,  by  way  of  general  advice,  remember  always, 
especially  in  English  themes,  not  to  consider  how  your  thesis 
applies  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Eomans,  or  to  tyrants  or 
conquerors,  and  not  to  talk  about  "  the  avaricious  man,"  "  the 
cruel  man,"  "  the  idle  man,"  "  the  sensual  man,"  "  the  ambitious 
man,"  etc.  etc.,  but  consider  how  it  applies  to  yourself,  to  your 
own  secret  wishes,  your  day-dreams,  your  studies,  the  things 
that  cause  in  you  pleasure  and  pain — your  intercourse  with 
your  school-fellows,  the  causes  of  your  various  feelings  towards 
them,  your  friendsliips,  your  hatreds,  your  envyings,  your 
fearings,  etc.,  their  conduct  and  feelings  towards  each  other, 
their  parties,  the  idols  of  the  school,  etc.  Be  always  examining 
your  own  heart  and  your  own  mind,  and  endeavouring  to 
describe  in  words  your  internal  feelings.  I  think  there  is  no 
boy  in  England  who  would  not  soon  have  something  to  say 
on  any  given  subject  if  he  did  this,  instead  of  going  off  to 
Alexander  and  Socrates,  and  to  similes  of  lions,  and  hawks, 
and  ships,  and  rivers,  and,  worse  than  all,  to  stupid  scraps  of 
Horace  and  Virgil ;  for  mind,  James,  whenever  you  find  a  good 
thought  in  another  writer  do  not  quote  it,  but  express  it  in 


Introduction. 


13 


your  own  words  with  some  attempt  at  improvement.  Keeping 
in  view  all  these  directions,  I  would  advise  you  to  use  always 
'some  such  plan  as  this,  which  is  recommended  by  one  of  our 
greatest  Oxford  writers :  Make  the  four  parts  of  your  theme 
the  answers  to  these  four  questions.  1 .  What  is  the  state  of 
the  case — how  in  what  cases,  in  what  feelings,  in  what  men, 
etc.  etc.,  is  the  thesis  true  ?  2.  What  are  the  causes  1 — whence 
is  it  so  ?  3.  What  are  the  consequences  of  this  being  the  case,  of 
these  feelings  being  indidged  in,  etc.  etc.  ?  4.  What  practical 
conclusions  can  be  drawn  from  what  has  been  asserted  in  the 
three  first  parts  ?  what  causes  of  injury  are  to  be  repressed  ? 
what  things  apparently  harmless  are  to  be  avoided  on  account 
of  their  consequences,  etc.  Or,  to  be  brief,  1.  What  is  the  case  ? 
2.  Why  or  how  is  it  ?  3.  What  follows  ?  4.  What  then  must 
I  do  ?  You  will  perhaps  find  some  difficulty  in  applying  this 
rule  to  all  subjects — you  can,  I  know,  to  most — but,  pray, 
always  ask  yourself  the  questions.  I  would  advise  you  also  to 
attend  to  your  prose  more  than  your  verse  ;  prose  is  infinitely 
the  more  difficult  of  the  two.  I  will  give  you  a  few  rules 
which  have  frequently  been  given  to  me.  Aim  at  diffuseness, 
and  do  not  care  if  your  Latin  is  twice  as  long  as  your  English. 
In  Latin  always  give  the  connection  of  the  sentences,  whether  that 
connection  mark  the  cause,  or  the  consequences,  or  the  confir- 
mation, or  the  instance,  etc.  etc.  Do  this  whether  you  find  the 
connection  expressed  in  the  English  or  not,  for  remember  that 
very  frequently  where  we  understand  the  connection  the  Romans 
express  it.  If  you  cannot  find  one  Latin  word  to  express 
your  meaning,  use  several ;  avoid  as  much  as  possible  using 
adjectives  without  their  substantives,  especially  in  the  nomina- 
tive case ;  for  remember  that  a  Latin  author  will  scarcely  ever 
use  a  nominative  case  when  he  can  bring  in  any  other,  and 
will  scarcely  ever  use  an  active  verb  when  he  can  alter  the 
construction  so  as  to  supply  its  place  with  a  passive. 

Be  continually  breaking  your  words  in  sentences,  and  using 
every  circumlocution  you  can  think  of.  Indeed,  you  will 
sometimes  not  be  able  to  translate  an  English  sentence  into 
Latin  without  giving  in  the  Latin  a  full-length  definition  of 
every  English  word.    Avoid  all  abstract  terms ;  I  mean  such 


Introduction. 


as  honesty,  virtue,  humanitas,  etc. — at  least  it  is  safer  to  do  so. 
Be  particularly  on  your  guard  against  being  deceived  by  the 
similarity  of  Latin  words  to  English  ;  for  instance,  "  vitiosius," 
which  I  find  in  your  Latin  does  not  generally  mean  "more 
vicious,"  but  "  more  rotten,"  and  "  communius  "  does  not  mean 
"  more  frequent,"  but  more  equally  common  to  certain  persons. 
"  Genus  "  means  sex  "in  propria  quae  maribus,"  but  nowhere  else. 
Then  I  entreat  you  use  a  dictionary  as  little  as  possible,  and 
when  you  do  look  for  a  word  be  sure  you  know  the  exact 
meaning  you  want  to  represent. 

My  father  says  that  you  must  not  go  by  London,  at  least 
as  you  go  to  Oxford,  as  that  will  infallibly  drive  all  your  Latin 
out  of  your  head.  I  think  that  is  true.  If  you  cannot  see 
yourself  how  this  can  be  the  case,  you  must  take  your  father's 
word  and  mine  for  it,  for  there  are  many  things  which  are 
perfectly  true  which  yet  could  not  be  explained  to  you. — Yours 
affectionately,  Thomas  Mozley. 

May  22,  1827. 

Dear  Tom, — I  received  your  letter  this  morning.  You  appear 
from  your  letter  to  think  that  I  have  learnt  all  those  lines  off 
by  heart,  but  I  assure  you  I  have  only  learnt  to  construe  them. 
I  shall  do  what  you  advise  about  writing  Latin,  for  I  really 
wish  to  know  how  to  write  it  very  much.  I  should  like  to  see 
a  specimen  of  your  composition ;  I  don't  think  1  ever  have. 
I  assure  you  I  don't  think  learning  such  a  trouble  as  you 
imagine.  I  think  I 'm  very  different  from  what  I  was  in  this 
respect,  when  two  or  three  holidays  ago  I  used  to  hate  any 
kind  of  learning,  and  be  always  going  after  novels.  I  do  a  piece 
of  Homer  now  with  pleasure,  except  now  and  then  when  I 'm 
rather  impatient.  You  '11  see  how  I  shall  fag  when  I  get  up  to 
Oxford.  ...  I  wish  you  would  put  the  sentence  about  going 
in  a  postscript  by  itself,  that  I  may  show  it  to  Mr.  Andrews, 
and  there  may  be  no  fuss  about  it.  Put  it  with  mamma's  and 
papa's  authority,  for  I  can  tell  you  yours  won't  be  enough  with 
him.  ...  I  declare  I  don't  like  Andrews  at  all.  Every  time 
I  construe  to  him,  he  tries  to  put  me  in  a  passion  by  mocking 
me,  but  I  always  take  it  very  coolly,  with  a  smile  of  scorn 


Introduction. 


15 


and  disdain.  You  have  no  idea  what  a  sensation  I  feel  when 
I  construe  to  him ;  to  be  mimicked  and  derided,  I  cannot  bear, 
and  I  don't  think  any  of  our  own  family  ever  could.  I 
think  you  will  pardon  me  if  I  wish  to  get  away  as  soon  as 
possible. 

Early  in  June  he  went  up  to  Oxford ;  the  result  is  told  in 
the  following  letter : — 

Oriel,  June  15,  1827. 
Dear  Mother, — James  has  not  got  the  scholarship,  but  I 
am  sure  you  will,  or  at  least  ought  to  be,  much  better  pleased 
with  things  as  they  are.  There  were  seven  candidates,  all  of 
them  about  17  or  18.  James  had  been  several  times  praised 
by  the  examiner ;  I  believe  the  only  one  who  was.  When  the 
thing  was  settled  this  morning  the  examiner,  on  bringing  the 
news  to  the  successful  candidate  (one  Overton  of  Louth  school) 
who  was  standing  among  the  rest  waiting  in  the  quadrangle,  told 
James  the  President  ("  and  Fellows, "  James  desires  me  to  say) 
wished  to  speak  to  him.  James  accordingly  went  into  the 
chapel,  where  the  President  and  Fellows  were,  when  the 
President  told  him  they  had  been  much  pleased  with  his 
examination,  that  he  had  passed  the  second  best,  and  would 
certainly  have  been  chosen  but  for  his  extreme  youth ;  since,  on 
account  of  the  number  of  vacancies  in  the  College,  he  would  be 
obliged  to  reside  immediately  after  Christmas,  which  they  said 
would  do  him  great  harm.  It  would  indeed  be  ridiculously 
young.  They  then  told  him  there  would  be  another  vacancy 
for  Lincolnshire  in  about  two  years,  when  they  hoped  he  would 
try.  James  was,  as  you  would  perceive,  the  only  one  to  whom 
this  was  said,  and,  from  all  that  I  hear,  the  examiners  never 
reject  any  one  whom  they  have  advised  to  try  again.  This,  you 
will  see,  is  a  far  more  convenient  time  than  now,  if,  indeed,  that 
be  not  rather  too  young.1 

James  returned  to  school  after  his  trial  at  Corpus  in  a  state 
of  mind  to  find  his  life  there  more  irksome  than  ever.  His 

1  He  did.  not,  however,  stand  again  for  Corpus  :  there  was  no  election  at 
the  time  expected. 


i6 


Introduction. 


master  seems  to  have  shown  a  certain  triumph  in  his  dis- 
appointment, as  we  gather  from  the  recollections  of  a  school- 
fellow ;  and  was  in  a  temper  to  exasperate  his  somewhat 
unsettled  pupil.  Mr.  Andrews'  letter  to  his  parents  at  Christ- 
mas of  that  year  greatly  disconcerted  his  mother.  His  brother 
had  written  from  Oxford : — "  I  hope  you  will  not  be  troubled 
by  Mr.  Andrews'  report  of  James,  as  I  think  it  very  probable 
that  he  either  thinks  ambition  the  best  of  all  motives,  or  that 
he  has  not  thought  on  the  subject  at  all — and  that  if  he  cannot 
see  anything  in  James  to  remark  and  to  commend  besides 
ambition,  it  is  his  fault,  and  not  James's."  The  state  of  things 
was  so  unsatisfactory  that  Mrs.  Mozley  was  exceedingly  anxious 
for  James's  removal  from  Grantham.  His  father,  who  was 
disposed  in  all  such  matters  to  take  the  master's  side,1  and  who 
might  probably  be  unwilling  to  remove  a  clever  boy  from  a 
school  which  had  good  exhibitions,  was  difficult  to  persuade. 
At  length,  however,  it  was  settled  to  give  notice  of  James's 
removal  at  Midsummer. 

In  later  days  James  Mozley  used  to  contrast  the  boy's  return 
to  school  of  modern  days  with  his  own  remembrances.  Never, 
however,  making  allusion  to  the  troubles  these  letters  reveal, 
only  how  miserable  the  winter  journey  and  all  connected  with 
the  return  used  to  be.  It  is  as  showing  the  influence  upon 
character  of  this  trying  period,  the  deepening  and  giving  reality 
to  life,  that  the  following  letters  are  given.  The  sight  of 
Oxford  and  his  brother's  friends ;  success  in  the  College  examina- 
tions, as  far  as  the  examiners'  approval  went ;  the  self-reliance 
and  hopes  thus  received ;  a  new  sense  of  power  and  intellect 
imparted  to  the  boy  of  thirteen,  followed  by  all  this  school  tribula- 
tion and  the  home  anxieties  attending  it,  told  with  force  upon 

1  Mr.  Andrews  had  been  recommended  by  very  competent  authority  to 
my  father — though  some  years  before  this  date — and  his  own  experience  of 
school  had  been  a  very  happy  one.  He  had  been  a  favourite  with  his 
master  the  Rev.  William  Grey — afterwards  Minor  Canon  of  Lincoln,  and 
had  left  school  with  regret  when  called  away  to  the  business  of  life. 


Introduction. 


17 


him.  Trouble  realised  and  dwelt  upon  in  childhood  and  early 
boyhood,  where  there  is  power  to  grasp  it  and  dwell  upon  it, 
leaves  indelible  marks  on  the  character  and  manner.  It  is  to 
illustrate  this  that  we  have  dwelt  upon  this  period. 

His  sister  Jane  writes  to  him  on  his  return  to  Grantham : — 

Derby,  February  5,  1828. 
My  dear  James, — Mamma  is  desirous  that  you  should  be 
written  to,  because  she  wishes  you  to  write  soon  to  say  how  you 
are  going  on.  As  you  are  in  rather  peculiar  circumstances 
this  half  year,  we  wish  to  keep  up  a  regular  and  frank  corre- 
spondence, which  I  can  tell  you  is  the  only  way  of  making 
mamma  tolerably  easy,  for  she  is  very  anxious  about  you,  and 
it  is  only  from  your  letters  that  she  expects  to  have  any  comfort : 
let  them,  therefore,  contain  your  genuine  feelings  and  a  candid 
account  of  your  proceedings.  I  know  that  yours  is  no  easy 
task.  You  have  not  only  to  keep  a  strict  watch  over  yourself, 
but  you  have  to  bear  the  strictest  and  not  always  the  most 
charitable  scrutiny  from  your  master.  .  .  .  He  wrote  a  most 
indignant  letter  in  answer  to  papa's  notice  for  your  removal  at 
midsummer,  and  I  expect  he  will  be  cold  and  harsh  in  his 
conduct  to  you;  but  let  not  this  discourage  you  in  a  resolu- 
tion, I  was  very  happy  to  hear  you  had  made  before  leaving 
home,  to  try  to  regain  Mr.  Andrews'  good  opinion.  You 
must  not  mind  your  endeavours  to  this  good  end  being  mis- 
understood, as  they  may  probably  be ;  but  persevere  not  only 
for  your  own  but  mamma's  sake,  who  suffers  on  your  account 
a  degree  of  anxiety  which  hardly  a  life  of  duty  and  obedience 
on  your  part  will  repay.  You  do  not,  you  never  can,  know 
how  deeply  you  are  indebted  to  her.  "What  struggles  she  has 
had  to  go  through  for  what  she  has  conceived  to  be  your  good. 
Therefore  you  should  bear  a  great  deal  for  her  sake  alone,  even 
setting  aside  other  motives ;  do  not  disappoint  her  hopes  which 
have  always  been  sanguine  that  there  was  that  in  your  charac- 
ter that  would,  with  your  maturing  sense,  overcome  the  self- 
willedness  and  other  faults  which  perhaps  you  are  less  aware  of 
than  those  about  you.  I  do  not  wish  to  tease  you  with  a 
sermon,  but  I  think  it  my  duty  to  tell  you  there  is  this  anxious 

B 


i8 


Introduction. 


feeling  for  you  at  home,  and  that  you  will  probably  be  most 
narrowly  watched  at  school.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

Jane  Mozley. 

James's  answer  follows  in  a  few  days : — 

February  11,  1828. 

Dear  Jane, — I  received  your  letter  last  Wednesday,  which 
I  assure  you  gave  me  much  comfort,  and  so  far  was  I  from 
thinking  what  you  said  a  teasing  lecture,  that  I  thought  upon 
everything  you  said,  and  determined  to  do,  as  far  as  laid  in  my 
power,  everything  you  advised  me.  Mr.  Andrews  called  me 
into  the  parlour  Saturday  before  last,  and  told  me  what  he  had 
written  to  papa  ;  it  would  be  no  use  my  recounting  what 
he  said,  as  you  know,  I  suppose,  what  he  wrote ;  but  I  have 
not  passed  many  such  miserable  hours  in  my  life  as  those 
which  I  passed  after  that.  I  was  continually  imagining  and 
making  conjectures  of  what  his  letter  would  cause  at  home, 
and  what  a  hardened  rebel  I  should  be  thought  there.  But 
most  of  all  I  feared  the  agitation  it  would  cause  mamma.  I 
have  said  nothing  more  than  what  I  felt;  and  very  seldom 
were  my  feelings  so  much  excited  as  they  were  then.  I  received 
papa's  letter  last  night ;  tell  him  to  be  assured  that  I  will  do 
my  best  to  gain  Mr.  Andrews'  good  opinion.  I  can  say  with 
truth  that  I  have  not  any  bitter  feelings  towards  my  master 
hitherto ;  and  I  hope  I  shall  pass  the  whole  half  year  as  recon- 
ciled to  him  in  my  own  mind  as  I  am  now.  Tell  mamma  to 
be  assured  that  I  will  restrain  myself  as  far  as  is  in  my  power. 
I  daresay  you  think  this  an  odd  sort  of  a  letter ;  but  I  feel  as 
if  the  power  of  expressing  what  I  felt  was  gone.  I  go  on  now 
as  other  boys  do,  and  am  treated  in  the  same  manner.  I  have 
nothing  more  to  say. — I  remain  your  affectionate  brother, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

From  his  Mother; 

My  dear  James, — I  hope  you  are  going  on  well  in  all 
respects  ;  I  have  been  sadly  troubled  about  you.  Mr.  Andrews' 
letter  made  me  perfectly  wretched,  and  I  have  scarce  been  well 
since ;  I  cannot  help  being  in  constant  fear  of  some  new  com- 
plaints.   There  is  always  much  to  dread  when  such  tempers  as 


Introductioti. 


19 


yours  and  Mr.  Andrews'  come  in  contact.  You  must  be  con- 
stantly on  your  guard,  and  let  the  recollection  that  you  have 
not  to  stay  very  long  bear  you  up  under  any  fancied  ill-resent- 
ment. Your  papa  would  scarcely  ever  forgive  your  being  sent 
away  from  school,  and,  depend  upon  it,  Mr.  A.  will  not  bear 
much  from  you,  knowing,  as  he  does,  that  you  will  leave  him  at 
the  end  of  the  half-year. 

[A  few  days  later  he  writes  :] 

February  18,  1828. 
We  had  a  letter  from  Tom  yesterday ;  he  has  read  another 
theme  in  Hall.  He  does  not  seem  much  disposed  to  give  up 
writing  them  till  he  is  obliged ;  I  am  afraid  they  will  take  him 
too  much  time.  [This  refers  to  the  question  of  his  reading  for 
honours.]  Your  papa  has  had  a  letter  from  Mr.  Parker,  of 
Oxford.  He  mentions  Tom.  The  Bishop  of  Llandaff  asked 
Mr.  Parker  if  his  son  knew  Mr.  Mozley,  of  Oriel ;  and  then 
went  on  to  praise  him  in  the  most  unqualified  manner  ;  talked 
of  all  his  acquirements,  and,  more  particularly,  his  English 
composition.  He  said  "  it  was  not  only  superior  to  any  young 
man's  at  Oriel  at  present,  but  superior  to  any  he  ever  remem- 
bered there."  You  may  be  sure  we  were  all  highly  delighted 
with  this.  Your  papa  seems  to  think  more  of  it  than  of  any 
thing  of  the  kind  he  has  ever  met  with.  I  must  leave  Maria  to 
tell  you  all  the  home  news,  for  I  am  very  much  engaged  to-day. 
Hoping  to  hear  a  good  account  of  you  soon,  I  am,  my  dear 
James,  your  anxious  mother,  Jane  Mozley. 

James  left  Grantham  in  the  summer  of  1828.  When  Dr. 
Arnold  was  appointed  to  Eugby,  his  brother  Tom  advised  his 
being  sent  to  that  school. 

Cheltenham,  February  10,  1829. 
My  dear  Mother, — You  must  be  uneasy  at  not  hearing 
from  me  about  James,  and  are,  perhaps,  thinking  of  letters  mis- 
carrying, and  such  accidents ;  but  I  have  not  received  a  letter 
either  from  Mr.  Joyce  or  Mr.  Arnold,  who  opened  the  school  in 
person  yesterday  week,  and  ought,  therefore,  to  have  written  to 
me  long  since.  I  don't  know  in  the  least  what  to  do ;  I  had  a 
long  conversation  with  Mr.  Newman  about  James  the  last  time 


20 


Introduction. 


I  saw  him,  but  he  could  give  me  no  assistance  whatever.  He 
said  that  he  had  been  placed  in  exactly  the  same  dilemma 
when  he  was  fifteen,  and  had  been  sent  to  College  at  that  age, 
merely  for  want  of  a  better  means  of  disposing  of  him. 

When  Dr.  Arnold  did  write  to  T.  M.  it  was  to  decline  his 
brother  on  account  of  his  age.  I  recall  the  term  used — "  super- 
annuated." James  therefore  remained  at  home,  under  the 
tuition  of  the  Kev.  James  Dean,  until  he  went  to  Oriel. 

The  year  1829  was  marked  by  what  was  felt  a  great  family 
event — my  brother  Tom's  election  to  a  Fellowship  at  Oriel.1  One 
of  the  first  acts  of  the  new  Fellow  was  to  send  for  his  brother 
James  to  stand  for  a  Fellowship  at  Trinity,  for  which,  however, 
he  proved  too  young  to  stand.  James  reports,  with  character- 
istic easiness,  that  Tom,  having  not  yet  got  rooms  in  College,  gives 
up  his  bedroom  at  his  lodgings  to  him,  constructing  a  bed  for 
himself  out  of  an  easy  chair  :  "  This  he  prefers  to  a  regular  bed  ; 
for,  being  left  to  his  own  devices,  his  mind,  he  says,  is  so  easy 
and  comfortable  that  he  is  apt  to  sleep  longer  than  is  quite 
proper."  Tom,  on  his  side,  conveys  to  his  mother  his  estimate 
of  James's  personal  advantages — his  growth  and  fine  looks,  in 
terms  that  cautiously  veiled  his  admiration :  "  What  a  prodigious 
fellow  James  is  grown  !  I  think  he  is  improved  in  appearance. 
He  does  not  lounge  or  heave,  or  roll,  or  hulk  quite  as  much  as 
he  did." 

1  His  sister  Jane  was  from  home  at  the  time.  She  acknowledged  the 
letters  which  had  brought  her  the  news  with  characteristic  appreciation  of 
the  honour  of  an  Oriel  Fellowship  in  those  days,  and  disregard  of  mere 
pecuniary  advantage.  Two  letters  in  the  same  hand  had  given  her  a 
moment's  alarm  :  "  The  idea  of  good  sudden  news  never  occurred  to  me,  so 
it  was  with  much  trembling  that  I  opened  the  one  that  bore  the  greatest 
marks  of  haste.  'Any  bad  news?'  asked  Mr.  H.  and  M.  'No,  good;' 
but  that  was  all  I  could  say  for  a  few  minutes,  and  when  I  did  say  that  my 
brother  was  elected  Fellow  of  Oriel,  they  would  doubtless  wonder  that  I 
could  be  so  transported,  the  magic  of  these  words  being  unknown  to  them. 
Mr.  H.  very  naturally  asked  what  the  Fellowshiji  was  worth — worth  !  I 
quite  stared  ;  hardly  comprehending  the  connection  of  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence  with  the  high  honour  of  an  Oriel  Fellowship." 


Introduction. 


2  I 


May  1 8. — James  reports  that  it  is  ascertained  that  he  cannot 
stand  at  Trinity,  sixteen  to  twenty  being  the  ages  for  candidates 
to  offer  themselves  : — 

"  Tom,  however,  says  it  was  not  so  much  for  a  scholarship 
that  he  sent  for  me,  as  that  I  might  read  with  him.  ...  I 
called  on  one  of  my  Lincoln  friends  to-day,  and  heard  rather  a 
gloomy  account  of  Grantham  school.  .  .  .  The  school  is  falling 
off,  there  being  now  only  thirty  boys,  and  many  of  those  going 
to  leave  soon." 

As  a  testimony  to  his  school  teaching,  as  well  as  his  early 
ability,  it  should  be  noticed  that  James  must  have  been  forward 
in  every  way,  as  well  as  well  grown ;  for  I  gather  from  a  letter, 
dated  December  9,  1829,  that  his  brother  was  endeavouring  to 
effect  his  admission  to  Oriel  in  the  beginning  of  next  term — at 
the  time  when  James  was  sixteen  years  and  three  months  old. 
He  gives  to  his  mother  the  details  of  a  call  on  the  Provost 
(Dr.  Hawkins)  on  this  subject,  and  the  many  difficulties  he 
interposed,  of  which  it  does  not  seem  that  age  was  one.  He 
had  pleaded  that,  as  he  should  be  in  residence  in  Oxford,  his 
brother  might  be  with  him  in  the  lodgings  he  occupied,  before 
entering  upon  rooms  in  College. 

December  9,  1829. 
I  talked  over  the  matter  afterwards  to  Newman,  and  when  I 
had  done  he  instantly  said  :  "  But  don't  you  see,  Mozley,  what 
his  objection  was?"  I  thought  for  a  moment,  and  then  it 
suddenly  occurred  to  me  that  my  brother  entering  on  such 
reasons  implied  that  I  should  certainly  be  made  a  full  Fellow. 
Newman  said,  of  course  it  was ;  and  told  me  a  story  of  Froude 
going  to  the  late  Provost,  while  probationer,  and  asking  for 
rooms,  when  the  Provost  (Copleston)  repelled  him  with  indig- 
nation, and  fretted  and  fumed  for  weeks  after.  It  is,  I  must 
acknowledge,  of  great  importance  to  keep  up  these  suppositions, 
or  by  and  by  the  Fellows  would  scarcely  be  able  to  reject  an 
unpleasant  probationer.  Term  ends  on  the  1 4th  ;  before  which 
day  all  matriculations  for  next  term  must  take  place.    I  shall 


22 


Introduction. 


stay  in  Oxford  till  that  day  for  the  chance  of  a  vacancy,  and 
James  must  hold  himself  in  readiness  to  start  for  Oxford  at  a 
moment's  warning,  though,  I  confess,  I  have  not  great  expecta- 
tions. I  shall  probably  stay  a  few  days  further,  as  Sam 
Wilberforce  is  coming  up  for  his  ordination. 

Bonamy  Price  has  got,  or  rather  at  this  moment  is  getting, 
his  Double  First  with  uncommon  dclat. 

The  idea  was  given  up — or  came  to  nothing — and  the 
brothers  corresponded,  T.  M.  sending  James  geometrical  pro- 
positions to  prove,  which  James  returns  : — 

From  his  Brother,  T.  M. 

March  24,  1830. 
I  fear  it  will  cost  you  some  labour  before  you  can  learn  the 
art  of  Deduction.  For  I  would  have  you  to  know  that  the 
geometrical  practice  I  am  giving  you  is  but  one  particular  kind 
of  process,  which  you  will  constantly  have,  and  use  in  all  kinds 
of  knowledge.  You  do  not  seem  to  feel  (as  far  as  I  can  judge 
from  your  three  proofs)  the  necessity  of  referring  accurately  to 
certain  truths  already  proved.  This  is  a  matter  of  great 
importance,  both  for  confirming  and  rendering  accurate  in  your 
memory  what  you  have  already  learnt,  and  because  in  all  exer- 
cises of  this  kind  in  Oxford,  whether  written  or  spoken,  the 
utmost  verbal  accuracy  is  always  required. 

Then  follow  instances.  To  this  letter  James  replies  with  a 
becoming  humility,  exercising  upon  himself  the  analytical  vein 
which  made  his  subsequent  studies  of  character  remarkable. 

March  31,  1830. 
My  dear  Tom, — I  write,  though  I  have  only  one  proposition 
prepared.  The  first  proposition  that  you  speak  of  in  your 
letter  is  indeed  very  badly  proved,  as  I  saw  afterwards  when  I 
looked  at  it.  And  what  you  say  in  general  about  the  looseness 
and  vagueness  of  my  demonstrations,  I  think  I  understand 
now,  though  at  first  I  could  not.  If  a  problem  is  regarded 
merely  as  a  riddle  to  be  explained  (and  that  certainly  is  its 


Introduction. 


23 


most  amusing  form),  vagueness  and  indistinctness  of  expression 
must  follow.  And,  as  it  is  very  difficult  to  prevent  this  ;  parti- 
cularly as  I  know  little  of  Euclid.  I  have  not  sufficient  know- 
ledge of  Euclid  for  it  to  be  a  separate  department  in  my  mind, 
so  that  it  is  mixed  up  with  my  powers  of  investigation  in 
general.  This  looking  upon  propositions  as  riddles  is  no  more 
than  what  I  have  to  combat  against  in  almost  everything  I  do. 
It  is  seizing  upon  all  the  interesting  eminences  and  outlines  of 
a  subject  without  caring  much  how  I  connect  them  together, 
and  hoping  to  understand  the  whole  by  catching  at  the 
general  spirit  of  the  history.  For  in  this  sense  a  proposition 
may  be  called  a  history,  as  well  as  a  narration  of  events.  Both 
in  history  and  mathematics,  it  is  curiosity  which  causes  all 
this  haste  and  negligence. 

James  Mozley  entered  on  his  first  term  at  Oriel,  October  1830, 
when  he  was  just  1 7  (his  birthday,  Sept.  1 5).  His  brother's 
letter  that  speaks  of  his  plans,  etc.,  contains  a  notice  of  the 
difference  among  the  Oriel  tutors,  which  was  exciting  attention. 

T.  M.  to  his  Sister  Jane. 

Oriel,  December  3,  1830. 
Dear  Jane, —  .  .  .  All  sorts  of  rumours  have  gone  abroad 
respecting  the  differences  among  the  tutors,  and  it  has  received 
a  most  amusing  variety  of  versions.  It  has  been  described  as 
a  strike  for  advance  of  wages  or  more  pupils,  which  of  course 
has  fitted  well  into  the  probable  falling  off  of  the  College  conse- 
quent on  the  Heresy :  at  Tunbridge,  a  friend  of  Christie's  was 
told,  the  junior  Fellows  had  combined  to  turn  out  the  Provost. 
For  my  part,  I  think  it  no  more  use  trying  to  send  abroad  a 
correct  account  of  it,  for  it  is  not  easy  to  make  it  obvious  to 
the  meanest  capacities,  and  everybody  now-a-days  seems  to  feel 
himself  justified  in  contending  that  to  be  truest  which  is  the 
most  consonant  to  his  understanding.  Besides,  it  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  any  one,  for  the  mere  love  of  truth,  should  be 
knight-errant  enough  to  fight  with  blockheads  about  a  few 
tutors,  when  it  would  be  much  easier  to  amuse  them  with 
something  brief,  intelligible,  and  false. 


24 


Introduction. 


Newman's  mother  and  sisters  have  returned  for  the  winter, 
and  taken  a  cottage  at  Iffley ;  I  met  them  last  week  at 
Whately's.  James  has  ^made  up  his  mind  to  go  home  at 
Christmas ;  ...  he  will  doubtless  be  more  communicative  in 
College  matters  now  than  six  months  hence,  when  the  freshness 
will  have  faded  from  his  mind.  ...  I  take  it  there  is  little 
doubt  of  H.  Wilberforce  being  elected  here  [to  Oriel]  next 
year,  for  there  is  no  one  yet  talked  of  as  likely  to  stand  to  com- 
pare with  him.  He  is  considered  almost  sure  of  his  double 
first,  and  as  likely  as  any  one  to  get  the  new  Mathematical 
Scholarsliip  next  June. — Yours  affectionately,  T.  M. 

About  this  time  my  sister  Jane's  health  became  an  anxiety 
and  a  leading  family  interest.  The  eldest  daughter,  born  when 
her  mother  was  nineteen,  she  was  from  the  first  a  power  in 
the  family.  Her  clear  bright  intellect,  love  of  study,  and  ready 
powers  of  argument,  eager  temperament,  social  charm,  and 
grace  of  person  and  manner,  all  gave  her  influence  in  the  home 
circle,  and  constituted  her  the  "  star  "  of  the  family  among  our 
friends.  The  Derby  riots,  in  1831,  were  a  trial  to  nerve 
and  health.  I  was  up-stairs  on  the  third  floor  with  her  when 
the  roar  of  the  advancing  mob  gave  us  a  moment's  warning, 
followed  as  it  was  by  a  shower  of  stones,  dropping  with  heavy 
thud  from  step  to  step  of  the  upper  flight  of  stairs.  The 
brothers  down-stairs,  closing  shutters  against  the  missiles  pelt- 
ing in,  found  the  excitement  amusing.  James  happened  to  be 
taking  a  walking  tour  in  the  Peak,  and  regretted  the  fun. 
Nobody  was  much  frightened,  except  the  mother,  nervous  for 
everybody ;  but  a  house  open  in  its  whole  front  to  the  chill 
October  night  air  was  ill  suited  for  delicate  chest  and  lungs, 
even  for  a  night,  and  told  upon  the  invalid.  My  brother  Tom 
was  really  the  object  of  the  mob's  wrath,  as  he  has  intimated 
elsewhere.  After  the  Christmas  vacation,  spent  at  home,  James 
returned  to  Oxford,  and  writes  to  his  mother  the  current  news 
on  Church  affairs  : — 


Introduction. 


25 


Oxford,  February  1832. 

Dear  Mother, —  .  .  .  What  do  you  think  of  11.  Wilber- 
force  being  made  Bishop  of  Calcutta  ?  There  is  a  rumour  got 
afloat ;  I  don't  know  what  foundation  there  is  for  it.  Tom  says 
it  is  brought  down  by  some  Balliol  man.  There  is  nothing  so 
very  improbable  about  it.  The  Bishopric  has  generally  had 
to  go  begging  a  considerable  time  before  any  one  will  take  it, 
and  now,  with  the  example  of  three  Bishops  in  succession 
dying,  each  within  two  years  of  his  appointment,  it  is  not  pro- 
bable that  its  attractions  should  have  increased.  Of  course,  for 
all  the  influence  the  situation  has,  ministers  would  not  care 
whether  they  gave  it  to  one  of  their  friends  or  enemies.  Be- 
sides, Lord  Brougham  has  for  a  long  time  been  toadying  Mr. 
Wilberforce,  and  he  would  have  a  considerable  share  in  the 
disposal  of  such  preferment. 

Bulteel  is  progressing ;  he  has  published  an  account  of  three 
miracles  of  his  own  performance.  One  of  them  was  in  the 
case  of  his  own  sister-in-law,  Miss  Sadler,  who  had  been  ill  a 
long  time  from  some  nervous  disorder  that  kept  her  to  her  bed. 
He  effected  her  cure  by  constant  praying,  and  now  she  is,  I 
believe,  in  good  health.  There  is  nothing  very  wonderful  in  all 
this.  The  prayers  were  going  on  in  the  room  next  to  hers,  she 
being  all  the  time  aware  of  it,  and  every  one  knows  the 
influence  of  imagination  in  such  cases  as  hers,  which  seems  to 
have  been  a  mere  fanciful  disease,  as  she  always  had  the 
external  appearance  of  good  health.  I  don't  know  the  other  two 
miracles.  Bulteel's  sincere  belief  is  that  there  is  a  new  system 
of  things  in  the  course  of  revelation  now,  as  there  was  in  our 
Saviour's  time,  and  that  God  has  given  him  the  power  of  work- 
ing miracles  for  the  same  reasons  that  He  gave  it  to  the  apostles, 
in  order  to  convince  unbelievers.  He  has  also  in  this  book 
declared  his  belief  in  the  miracles  going  on  at  Mr.  Irving's 
chapel — the  unknown  tongues,  etc.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Bulteel  is  partially  deranged  :  I  should  not  be  much  sur- 
prised if,  before  long,  he  attempts  miracles  of  a  more  obvious 
kind,  as  curing  blindness.  These  absurdities  of  his  may 
possibly  work  some  good,  as  showing  the  state  that  men  come 
to  when  they  choose  to  cast  off  all  restraint.    One  man  who 


26 


Introduction. 


used  to  be  a  constant  attendant  at  his  church,  abuses  him  now 
without  the  smallest  hesitation.  .  .  .  Dornford  has  expressed 
great  indignation  at  the  report  about  Wilberforce,  and  talks 
about  juniors  and  seniors  and  undue  exaltation,  etc.  Froude, 
the  Fellow,  is  at  home  with  a  very  bad  cough. 

The  subject  of  the  following  letter  relates  to  an  affair  of  great 
parochial  interest  connected  with  the  law  of  pews,  in  which  my 
father  had  been  concerned,  and  into  which  my  brother  Tom 
had  thrown  himself  with  ardour  : — 

To  his  Brother. 

Oxford,  May  9,  1832. 
Dear  Tom, — Henry  Wilberforce  only  went  away  this  morn- 
ing, so  that  I  have  been  able  to  see  something  of  him.  .  .  .  One 
subject  that  we  hit  upon  is  rather  interesting  to  us.  He 
immediately  asked  me  whether  you  had  been  writing  a  strong 
pamphlet  against  the  Bishop  of  L.  and  C.  I  knew  pretty  well 
to  what  he  was  alluding,  but  I  was  considerably  surprised  at 
the  matter  having  got  to  his  ears.  However,  he  quickly  let 
me  know  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  grounds  of  the  re- 
monstrance, the  arrangement  of  the  pews,  and  the  parochial 
quarrelling  that  had  followed.  It  seems  he  had  been  dining 
at  the  Bishop's,  where  the  subject  had  incidentally  been 
brought  out — I  don't  know  by  whom.  The  Bishop,  he  said, 
had  acknowledged  himself  to  have  been  in  error.  The  notion 
they  had  about  the  authorship  was  that  you  had  written  one 
half  and  my  father  the  other.  Ryder  had  read  it  through,  and 
he  came  to  this  decision.  The  first  part  he  attributed  to  you, 
because  it  dealt  so  much  in  general  principles,  and  also  bore 
some  similarity  to  what  he  knew  of  your  style  of  writing.  He 
had  liked  it  very  much,  on  the  whole.  Wilberforce  asked  me 
point  blank  how  much  was  written  by  you.  This  was  rather  a 
hard,  driving  question ;  I  made  rather  a  bungling  answer.  He 
wished  very  much  to  see  the  pamphlet,  and  thought  my  father 
might  as  well  send  him  one.  I  had  one  in  my  desk  all  the 
while,  but  as  I  did  not  know  how  far  I  might  venture  to  lose 


Introduction. 


27 


sight  of  it,  I  did  not  say  anything  about  it. — Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  M. 

Two  months  later  his  letters  are  full  of  the  election  for 
the  Sanscrit  Professorship,  for  which  Mill  and  Wilson  were 
candidates. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  9,  1832. 

Newman,  Keble,  Ogilvie,  Pusey  of  Christ  Church,  are  all 
indefatigable  in  their  labours  for  Mill.  The  contest  will  be  a 
very  hard-run  one,  and  whoever  succeeds  will  get  it  by  a  few 
votes.  I  have  all  this  from  Newman.  By  the  by — [the  passage 
is  given  not  in  the  least  for  its  truth,  but  as  reporting  the  under- 
graduate impression  of  ladies,  at  all  out  of  the  common  routine 
in  intellectual  pursuits  and  advantages] — Newman  is  going  to 
introduce  me  to  his  mother  and  sisters.  The  Miss  Newmans 
are  very  learned  persons,  deeply  read  in  ecclesiastical  history, 
and  in  all  the  old  divines,  both  High  Church  and  Puritanical. 
But  notwithstanding  this  they  are,  I  believe,  very  agreeable 
and  unaffected.  In  fact,  to  have  such  a  brother  as  Newman  is 
a  sufficient  pledge  of  their  carrying  off  their  learning  well.  I 
walked  out  with  Newman  the  other  day,  and  had  a  great  deal 
of  talk,  as  you  may  expect,  on  things  in  general — political 
events,  political  men,  political  aims.  I  see  more  of  him  now 
than  ever  I  did.  I  read  an  English  theme  in  Hall  yesterday. 
The  subject  was  Curis  acuens  mortalia  corda,  which  means 
"  Sharpening  with  care  the  minds  of  men."  I  wrote  chiefly 
on  civilisation.  You  may  not  perhaps  at  first  exactly  see  the 
connection,  but  when  taken  with  its  context  it  is  very  much 
that  subject.  The  word  '  civilisation '  has  a  very  political 
appearance  about  it,  but  of  course  while  in  statu  pupillari  we 
do  not  meddle  with  politics  in  public  exercises.  .  .  . 

Some  most  puritanical-looking  pamphlets  have  come  out 
lately  in  the  Balliol  controversy;  one  against  Bulteel,  from 
one  of  his  former  friends,  is  entitled,  "  A  hard  nut  to  crack," 
and  an  answer  has  come  out,  "  The  Nut-cracker." 

Early  in  1832  his  brother  Tom  had  engaged  himself  to  Mr. 
Bound's  curacy  at  Colchester.    James  writes  that  he  had  shown 


28 


Introduction. 


his  letter  to  Mr.  Newman,  who  was  always  anxious  that  his 
friends  be  up  and  doing : — 

"  I  saw  Newman  to-day ;  he  is  very  well  pleased  with  Tom's 
curacy,  and  thought  it  would  do  him  a  great  deal  of  good.  He 
was  particularly  amused  with  his  having  to  write  two  sermons 
a  week." 

Colchester,  however,  little  suited  my  brother  Tom's  health ; 
the  work,  into  which  he  threw  himself  with  great  ardour, 
and  the  climate,  and  other  things  combined,  reducing  him 
presently  to  such  a  state  that  doctor  and  vicar  were  equally 
thankful  to  send  him  off  to  Teignmouth ;  where  his  eldest 
sister  had  been  taken  by  her  mother,  to  try  the  benefit  of  the 
famed  Devonshire  air.  He  looked  like  death  when  he  came 
— that  is,  as  if  he  had  come  to  die,  and  at  once  recovered 
health  and  strength  as  by  a  miracle.1 

1  No  such  wonders  were  worked  for  the  invalid  for  whose  sake  the 
journey  was  undertaken,  though  there  was  such  amendment  as  led  to  the 
hope  that  a  favourable  turn  had  been  taken.  James  had  been  anxious  that 
the  occasion  should  be  used  as  an  opportunity  of  seeing  Oxford  on  the  route. 
"  I  shall  have  the  greatest  pleasure  in  lionising  you."  It  was  thought  best 
to  take  Oxford  on  the  return  journey — a  delightful  arrangement  for  Jane, 
but  one  that  tried  her  strength  more  than  she  expected.  The  short  entries 
iD  her  Diary  show  the  effort  it  was  to  her.  Yet  it  cannot  be  regretted  that 
she  was  by  this  means  brought  acquainted  with  the  Newman  family,  and 
that  thus  a  link  connects  her  with  the  new  influence  which  had  such  an 
effect  on  the  family  life  ;  though  Jemima,  Mrs.  Newman's  second  daughter, 
soon  to  be  one  of  us,  happened  not  to  be  then  at  home.  Our  party  was 
most  kindly  received  by  Mrs.  and  Miss  Newman,  as  well  as  by  our  brother's 
friends  ;  all  showing  the  mother  in  what  high  regard  and  value  her  sons  were 
held.  As  a  testimony  to  the  singular  personal  influence  of  the  two  friends 
whose  names  were  then  associated,  and  the  effect  their  look  and  bear- 
ing made  on  observers,  I  give  a  little  extract  from  my  sister's  diary : — 
"Saturday,  July  7. — Newman  and  Froude  to  breakfast.  Striking  entrance, 
the  whole  not  to  be  described."  The  introduction  of  two  gownsmen  of  such 
marked  individuality,  such  unconscious  dignity  of  aspect,  with  a  sort  of 
historical  look  about  them,  very  naturally  made  its  impression  on  ladies 
to  whom  everything  was  new  and  inspiring,  who  were  the  more  open 
to  impression  for  not  having  been  prepared  for  this  greatness  of  aspect. 
Others,  no  doubt,  read  in  Jane's  looks  more  than  we,  who  were  thinking  of 
her  as  on  the  way  to  recovery.  Much  feeling  was  shown.  The  last  entry, 
recording  the  kindness  of  my  brother's  friend,  Mr.  Christie,  ends,  "  All  soon 
followed — tea,  and  pleasant  talk  of  Wordsworth — always  repent  of  what  I  say. 
— Farewells  :  all  seems  now  over  in  Oxford."     She  might  have  written 


Introduction. 


29 


The  following  letter  to  me  from  my  brother  Tom,  now  in 
charge  of  Moreton  Pinkney,  bears  on  the  state  of  things  he 
has  elsewhere  described  as  immediately  preceding  the  move- 
ment of  1833 :— 

T.  M.  TO  A.  M. 

Oriel  College,  December  22,  1832. 
My  dear  Anne, — They  are  all  here  making  up  their  minds 
to  expect  the  very  worst  things.  There  seems  no  difference  of 
opinion  between  Whigs  and  Tories  as  to  what  is  coming — they 
are  only  blaming  one  another  with  having  brought  it  on.  The 
measure  of  Church  Reform  drawn  up  by  Brougham  and 
Lushington  is  to  go  beyond  the  expectation  of  all  parties — 
it  is  to  be  a  measure  of  equalisation  embracing  as  one  of  its 
least  important  parts  a  change  in  the  manner  of  collecting  the 
ecclesiastical  revenues.  Ministers  mean  to  keep  it  to  them- 
selves till  ready,  and  throw  it  out  to  be  carried  by  popular 
clamour  without  any  alteration  being  allowed — in  the  idle 
hope  (or  rather  pretence)  that  it  is  to  be  a  "  final  measure."  The 
Bishops  have  been  met  some  time  at  Lambeth  about  it,  and  it 
seems  generally  understood  that  they  are  even  more  unanimous 
and  decided  than  about  the  Beform  Bill.  They  are  most  of 
them  prepared,  if  it  seems  fit  to  the  leading  ones,  and  occasion 
seems  to  require,  to  resign  their  offices — and  this  they  would 
be  glad  to  do  before  they  are  embarrassed  and  stultified  by 
concessions.  The  Whigs  in  London  are  quite  horrified  at  the 
result  of  the  Irish  elections.  In  all  Ireland  there  has  not  been 
one  returned  on  their  side.  They  are  all  Repealers  or 
Conservatives.  Now,  of  course,  the  Repealers  will  be  glad  to 
support  the  ministers  in  every  work  of  destruction. 

The  opening  of  the  year  1833  was  saddened  by  the  death 
of  Jane  Mozley,  which  took  place  in  February.  Shortly  after, 
James  Mozley  escorted  her  devoted  friend,  who  had  passed 

further,  "  All  is  now  over  for  me  of  general  intercourse  with  society,"  for  few 
more  opportunities  for  conversation  with  new  and  fresh  minds  were  allowed 
her.  The  last  seven  months  of  her  life  were  spent  in  her  owu  room — first 
as  a  precaution,  then  as  a  necessity. 


30 


Introduction. 


several  weeks  with  her,  hack  to  her  home.  From  thence  he 
writes  of  meeting  a  leading,  active  member  of  the  Liberal  party, 
expressing  himself  at  19,  with  a  strength  which  amusingly 
contrasts  with  his  guarded,  tolerant  tone  of  later  years,  towards 
those  who  differed  from  him  in  opinion,  wherever  difference  of 
opinion  admitted  of  indulgent  construction. 

April,  1833. 

Dear  Maria, —  .  .  .  This  reminds  me  that  I  must  tell 

you  something  about  Mr.   .  .  .  He  is  a  regular  built 

modern  London  barrister,  and  march-of-mind  man,  profoundly 
indifferent  to  exclusive  systems  of  belief,  withal  very  conceited. 
I  suppose,  however,  he  is  a  clever  man ;  he  has  a  good  deal 
of  humour  and  some  wit,  and  plenty  of  anecdote  and  conversa- 
tion ;  he  has  breakfasted  here  once,  and  dined  twice.  He  is, 
as  you  may  have  heard,  a  friend  of  Lord  Brougham's,  and 
an  active  member  of  the  Useful  Knowledge  Society.  This 
intimacy  with  Brougham  evidently  gives  him  great  satisfac- 
tion. .  .  .  Tom  Macaulay  is  another  intimate  friend  of  his, 
some  of  whose  good  stories  he  has  given  us ;  "  very  lucky  man 
that  Macaulay  ;  he  lives  a  great  deal  with  the  saints,  and  has 
capital  things  to  tell  of  them."  Can  you  imagine  anything 
more  disgusting  than  this  style  of  thing  ?  Here  are  these  men 
who  before  the  world  cry  up  the  saintly  party  as  the  only 
religious  people  in  the  kingdom,  and  who  really  think  they  are 
so,  turning  them  to  ridicule  in  their  own  private  circle.  Mr. 

 knew  Arnold,  and  has  been  acquainted  with  his  schemes 

for  some  time.  Arnold,  he  thinks,  is  one  of  the  boldest  men  in 
the  kingdom.  His  scheme  of  Church  Beform,  however,  being 
this,  is  not  practicable  at  present.  There  is  not  sufficient 
religious  feeling  in  the  country  to  carry  it.  Did  you  ever 
hear  humbug  equal  to  this  ?  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Here  these  introductory  pages  come  to  a  natural  conclusion, 
the  date  of  the  last  letter  showing  us  to  be  on  the  verge  of  the 
Oxford  movement,  with  its  rapidly  maturing  influences. 


LETTERS. 


The  stir  of  thought  which  issued  in  the  Oxford  movement 
had  already  told  on  James  Mozley.  His  interests  were  Church 
interests.  The  return  of  Mr.  Newman  from  abroad,  Mr. 
Keble's 1  Assize  Sermon,  and  the  Tracts  which  followed  in  due 
course,  kindled  in  him,  as  in  so  many  ardent  minds,  a  zeal 
which  found  expression  as  it  could.  All  who  felt  with  the 
chief  actors  in  the  movement  were  admitted  to  the  privilege 
and  charm  of  their  confidence,  and  derived  energy  from  their 
example.  The  letters  all  report  progress,  and  show  one  pre- 
dominant interest. 

Oxford,  July  12,  1833. 
Dear  Tom, — Newman  has  at  last  come,  and  is  looking  very 
well,  much  better  than  when  he  went,  and  considerably  tanned 
with  his  exposure  to  the  southern  sun.    He  landed  at  Brighton 
from  Dieppe,  and  reached   Oxford   on  Thursday.  Frank 

1  In  James  Mozley's  family  the  Christian  Year  bad  long  been  a  household 
book.  His  brother  T.  M.  had  sent  it,  soon  after  its  publication,  to  his  sister 
Jane,  with  these  words  :  "  I  should  wish  much  that  you  would  give  a  little 
study  to  the  book  I  enclosed  in  the  parcel.  Study,  perhaps,  is  too  harsh  a 
word,  and  savours  too  much  of  the  dry  critic.  But,  pray,  do  something  or 
other  with  the  book,  and  then  tell  me  what  you  think  of  it.  You  may,  with 
safety,  declare  any  judgment  you  like,  for  I  do  not  know  poetry  on  which 
there  are  such  various  opinions.  Some  think  it  will  outlive  all  other  human 
poetry  whatever,  others  that  it  will  be  unheard  of  fifty  years  hence ;  some 
think  it  simple,  others  far-fetched ;  some  think  it  only  requires  a  little  pure 
feeling  for  the  most  unlearned  to  enter  into  it,  others  that  it  is  xitterly  un- 
construable  to  every  one,  and  probably  to  the  author  himself  ;  some  think 
it  breathes  the  pure  spirit  of  'our  dear  Mother  Church,'  others  that  it 
bears  the  'mark  of  the  Beast.'  But  if  I  would  attempt  to  tell  you  all  that 
has  been  or  can  be  said  concerning  it,  I  must  take  up  Johnson's  Dictionary 
and  go  right  through  it,  taking  every  epithet  and  coupling  it  with  its 
opposite. — Oriel,  May  2,  1828." 


32 


Letters  of  the 


Newman  arrived  the  same  day — a  singular  coincidence.  It 
was  only  by  a  most  fortunate  train  of  accidents  that  Newman 
was  able  to  come  as  soon  as  he  did.  The  coaches  from  Paris  to 
all  the  ports  from  which  there  are  steamers  to  England  were 
full.  And  if  one  of  the  passengers  to  Dieppe  had  not  happened 
to  vacate  his  place,  he  would  have  been  detained  some  two  or 
three  days.  By  several  pieces  of  good  luck  like  this,  he 
has  travelled  almost  continuously  the  whole  of  the  way  from 
Palermo.  Though  looking  well  now,  he  was  ill  for  a  consider- 
able time  in  Sicily.  He  stayed  three  weeks  at  Palermo  waiting 
for  a  vessel  to  Marseilles,  and  dreadfully  tired  he  was  of  the 
place.  The  Sicilian  language  is  a  dialect  of  Italian,  but  so 
different,  that  it  was  almost  unintelligible  to  him.  There  were 
only  three  or  four  English  residents  there,  and  those  merchants, 
fully  occupied  with  their  business,  so  that  though  they  were 
very  civil  to  him,  and  asked  him  to  dinner  and  so  on,  yet 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  his  time  was  spent  in  complete 
solitude.  There  were  no  books  for  him  to  read,  none  at  least 
that  were  at  all  interesting  to  him.  The  English  are  very 
much  looked  up  to  there,  both  from  the  idea  the  Sicilians  have 
of  their  wealth,  and  from  gratitude  for  their  conduct  in  the 
late  war.  Eroude  has  just  told  me  that  Newman  was  most 
dangerously  ill  in  Sicily,  of  a  violent  epidemic  fever.  At  the 
time  he  was  taken  ill  with  it,  there  was  no  medical  aid  at 
hand.  By  one  of  those  singular  caprices  which  people  in 
fevers  sometimes  take  up,  he  fancied  himself  able  to  walk  some 
way — he  did  walk  a  few  miles,  till  he  completely  sank  down, 
and  was  carried  into  a  hovel.  While  lying  there  a  physician 
happened  to  go  past,  and  by  his  care  he  was  so  far  recovered 
as  to  be  able  to  reach  the  next  town,  where  he  got  regular 
medical  advice.  But  his  life  was  still  almost  given  up  for 
three  or  four  days.  Perhaps  the  illness,  on  the  whole,  may 
have  done  him  good.  Slight  weakness  is  all  that  now 
remains.  .  .  .  You  will  now  think  of  coming  up.  Newman, 
now  that  he  is  once  back,  does  not  intend  to  leave  Oxford  in  a 
hurry,  so  all  his  friends  who  wish  to  see  him,  must  come  to 
Oxford.  Perhaps  you 'd  as  well  come  in  harvest- time,  as  that 
seems,  by  all  accounts,  to  be  a  time  when  clergymen  can  do 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


33 


nothing  in  their  parishes.  Newman  wishes  to  see  you  very 
much. — Yours  affectionately,  James  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  Sept.  3,  1833. 
With  this  letter  you  will  receive  a  considerable  number  of 
tracts,  the  first  production  of  the  Society  established  for  the 
dissemination  of  High  Church  principles.  Of  course  you  have 
heard  of  this  new  thing  set  up.  If  I  recollect  right,  however, 
Froude's  letter  was  written  at  the  first  starting,  not  that  there 
is  much  additional  news  to  tell  you  about  it ;  we  must  be  con- 
tent to  wait  patiently  the  effects  of  agitation.  Answers,  how- 
ever, have  been  received  from  some  quarters,  and  on  the  whole 
favourable.  Keble  has  heard  from  Davison,  the  writer  on  the 
Prophecies — a  great  name,  by  far  the  most  talented,  I  should 
think,  of  the  old  school  of  Oriel  lights.  He  approves  of  the 
thing,  though  how  far  he  is  ready  to  go  I  have  not  heard.  Then 
Ogilvie,  he  is  a  great  addition,  for  his  approbation  implies  that 
of  the  Archbishop  too — it  being  a  rule  with  him  never  to 
advocate  any  opinion  or  any  proceedings  which  at  all  disagree 
with  the  Archbishop's  views.  So  scrupulous  indeed  is  he  on 
this  point,  that  he  has  narrowly  escaped  being  classed  with 
the  timid  party ;  by  the  timid  party,  meaning  not  those  who 
are  willing  to  concede,  but  those  who  are  afraid  to  make  a  stir. 
The  Archbishop  [Howley]  is  thought  here  to  be  a  man  of  first- 
rate  principle,  and  one  who  would  rather  lay  his  head  upon 
the  block  than  commit  himself  to  a  connivance  at  a  single 
unchristian  measure  which  our  present  legislators  may  choose 
to  adopt ;  but  he  has  also  been  thought  too  deficient  in  active 
courage,  to  take  an  important  part  in  public  affairs.  Perhaps 
he  will  show  better  when  it  comes  to, — and  Ogilvie  joining 
himself  is  a  good  sign.  Then  Eose  too  has  sent  in  his  attach- 
ment to  the  cause  ;  he  will  be  a  most  valuable  member,  and  will 
puff  and  blow  about  it  in  fine  style  in  the  British  Magazine  when 
the  Society  is  fairly  established.  But  for  the  present  you  must 
remember  all  these  details  I  have  been  going  through  are  secret. 

What  do  you  think  ? — you  will  accuse  me  of  vast  imprudence 
and  perhaps  impertinence,  but — I  have  sent  a  sheet  of  Tracts 

c 


34 


Letters  of  the 


to  Mr.  M.  N,  communicating  to  him  at  the  same  time  the 
news  of  the  formation  of  the  Society,  and  asking  him  what 
he  thinks  as  to  the  advantage  of  such  publications  being 
distributed.  .  .  .  The  fact  is,  we  must  not  be  very  scrupulous 
as  to  views  or  particular  as  to  sentiments  in  the  distribution  of 
these  things.  Newman  heard  from  Froude  the  other  day.  He 
was  in  high  spirits  when  he  wrote.  His  theory,  he  said,  as 
to  Parliament  having  been  a  lay  synod  before  the  repeal  of 
the  Test  Act,  and  being  now  therefore  completely  changed  in 
its  constitution  with  respect  to  the  Church,  took  very  well.  .  .  . 
You  ought  to  know,  by  the  by,  that  Newman  is  the  writer  of 
all  the  tracts  I  send  you ;  Keble  has  written  two,  but  they  are 
not  printed.  Of  Newman's  things  the  two  most  important,  as 
you  will  perceive,  are  the  one  on  Ordination,  and  the  one  on 
Irish  affairs.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,        James  Mozley. 

In  acknowledging  the  packet  of  Tracts  his  sister  asks  who  is 
to  distribute  them ;  and  adds,  "  it  answers  more  my  views  of 
the  Society,  to  circulate  them  all  through  the  clergy.  Therefore 
Mr.  Dean  has  had  nearly  all  ours." 

Oxford,  September  20,  1833. 
My  dear  Anne, — We  muster  rather  strong  at  present  in 
Oriel.  Tom,  Golightly,  Blencowe  are  up,  and  Marriott  has  been 
up,  but  is  now  gone.  You  know,  of  course,  what  the  meeting 
is  about — the  new  Society.  I  cannot  say,  however,  that  this 
particular  subject  has  been  much  talked  about,  or  that  anything 
new  has  been  proposed,  or  that  any  more  form  and  system  has 
been  given  to  the  Society  than  it  had  before.  However,  it  is 
something  gained  if  people  see  one  another,  and  discuss  general 
topics  that  bear  on  the  particular  one.  Actual  business,  it  must 
be  confessed,  goes  on  rather  slowly ;  but  this  must  always  be  at 
the  commencement  of  any  work.  The  manifesto  is  not  yet  pub- 
lished, and  perhaps  may  not  be  for  some  time.  It  is  now  under- 
going Eose's  examination.  Keble's  Tract,  too,  has  only  just 
come  out ;  and  I  know  it  was  in  the  press  more  than  a  week 
ago.  When  the  former  is  printed  I  will  send  it  you,  together 
with  some  more  Tracts,  as  you  say  more  are  wanted.    What  do 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


35 


people  about  you  say  of  the  style  of  these  Tracts  of  Newman's  ? 
Blencowe  says  that  some  to  whom  he  has  shown  them  think  it 
rather  affected — I  suppose  from  the  sentences  being  so  short, 
and  so  often  interrogatory.  One  is  not  very  much  surprised  at 
this  in  people  who  don't  know  Newman.  Not  that  there  is  any 
ground  for  the  charge  of  affectation,  but  the  style  is  certainly 
singular,  if  one  reads  them  (the  Tracts)  without  bringing  in 
one's  personal  knowledge  of  Newman.1  X.  finds  some  fault 
with  them  on  these  accounts,  and  says  they  look  exactly  like 
literal  translations  of  the  epistles  of  the  Apostolical  Fathers — 
but  this  is  X.'s  way.  I  don't  believe  he  is  thoroughly  satisfied 
with  anything  throughout,  except  his  own,  of  which  he  has  very 
considerable  admiration.  He  is  an  uncommonly  good  fellow, 
nevertheless,  with  all  his  conceit,  and  is  now  so  brisk  and  active, 
arguing  and  unfolding  his  sentiment,  and  laying  down  the  law 
in  the  most  amusing  manner.  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  there  is 
nothing  in  his  conceit  that  at  all  offends  one.  It  suits  him  so 
well,  and  is  in  such  beautiful  proportion  with  the  rest  of  his 
character,  that  one  would  clearly  pronounce  him  deficient  in 
something  or  other  if  he  was  without  it.  He  has  been  corre- 
sponding, as  I  told  you,  with  a  clergyman  in  Ireland,  who  turns 

1  This  question  on  the  subject  of  style  was  answered  at  once  : — 

"  September  23,  1833. 
"  Dear  James, —  ...  It  is  both  singular  and  disappointing  that  I  have 
heard  no  remarks  upon  the  style  or  contents  of  the  pamphlets  themselves. 
Mr.  Dean  and  Mr.  P.  [the  two  active  agents]  seem  to  know  what  they  are 
about,  and,  I  suspect,  put  off  the  trouble  of  reading  to  a  more  favourable 
opportunity.  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  say  Mr.  Dean  ;  but  I  know  Mr.  P. 
does.  One  person,  but  I  don't  know  who,  said,  I  believe,  that  the  style 
was  not  like  Newman's,  thereby  showing  he  knew  nothing  about  it ; 
for  it  is,  I  think,  most  characteristically  like  him.  He  enters  upon  his  sub- 
ject in  the  first  Tract — 'I  am  but  one  of  yourselves — a  Presbyter;  and, 
therefore,  I  conceal  my  name,  lest  I  should  take  too  much  on  myself  by 
speaking  in  my  own  person.  Yet  speak  I  must ;  for  the  times  are  very 
evil,  yet  no  one  speaks  against  them  ' — with  the  same  humble,  quiet 
manner  with  which  he  enters  a  room  before  one  is  aware.  I  understand 
quite  what  Mr.  X.  means  ;  there  is  certainly  something  uncommon  in 
it  ;  but  this,  I  think,  is  a  recommendation,  as  it  excites  attention."  The 
letter  goes  on  to  protest  against  some  strong  language  James,  in  the  ardour 
of  partisanship,  had  used  towards  Mr.  N.  M.,  a  gentleman  who  had  pro- 
tested against  Keble's  sermon  :  "  It  is  not  from  a  man  with  such  a  training 
that  you  ought  to  expect  much,  and,  therefore,  you  should  not  be  angry 
when  he  merely  acts  as  he  might  be  expected  to  act." 


36 


Letters  of  the 


out  to  be  Mr.  Magee,  who  has  just  written  that  address  to  the 
clergy  of  Waterford.  It  is  an  extraordinary  coincidence  (as  he 
has  fully  impressed  upon  me)  that  this  address  was  written  at 
the  very  time  that  X.'s  letter  reached  him,  recommending  that 
very  proceeding.  He  read  to  me  the  other  day  the  answer  he 
received — a  very  noble  and  affectionate  letter — though  com- 
plaining, perhaps,  rather  too  much  of  the  apathy  of  the  English 
clergy.  What  he  says  is  very  true ;  but  the  Irish  clergy 
have  made  of  their  own  accord  most  culpable  concessions  to 
Government,  and  so  have  themselves  chiefly  to  blame,  if  their 
order  falls  into  contempt.  ...  I  read  some  of  N.  M.'s  letter  to 
Newman,  and  he  was  far  from  setting  him  down  as  a  hopeless 
case.  Newman  now  is  becoming  perfectly  ferocious  in  the 
cause,  and  proportionately  sanguine  of  success.1  "  We  '11  do 
them,"  he  says,  at  least  twenty  times  a  day — meaning,  by 
"  them,"  the  present  race  of  aristocrats,  and  the  Liberal  oppressors 
of  the  Church  in  general. 

He  is  now  in  London  superintending,  I  suppose,  the  publica- 
tion of  his  book  [The  Avians],  which  is  now  printed.  I  have 
read  a  page  of  it  here  and  there,  as  the  proof-sheets  came  down. 
Full  half  of  it  is  introduction,  which  is  advantageous  on  the 
whole,  as  it  touches  on  subjects  which  will  soon  come  under 
public  discussion — creeds  and  articles,  etc.  Parts  of  it  are 
exceedingly  hard  to  understand,  owing  to  the  subtlety  of  the 
Arian  doctrines,  and  consequently  of  the  orthodox  answers  to 
them. 

The  declaration  of  the  Society  is  at  last  printed,  but  not  pub- 
lished. Before  that  takes  place  it  has  to  undergo  innumerable 
criticisms,  in  addition  to  the  six  weeks'  discipline  and  correction 
it  was  subject  to  before  it  was  printed.  It  is  completely 
different  from  the  one  originally  proposed  by  Keble — a  copy 

1  This  passage  curiously  illustrates  the  description  the  author  of  the 
Apologia  gives  of  his  state  of  mind  at  this  precise  date  :  "  My  behaviour 
had  a  mixture  in  it  both  of  fierceness  and  sport.  They  [certain  acts]  were 
the  fruit  of  that  exuberant  and  joyous  energy  with  which  I  had  returned 
from  abroad,  and  which  T  never  had  before  or  since.  I  had  the  exultation 
of  health  restored  and  home  regained.  ...  I  was  amid  familiar  scenes  and 
faces  once  more.  Aud  my  health  and  strength  came  back  to  me  with  such 
a  rebound  that  some  friends  at  Oxford  on  seeing  me  did  not  well  know  that 
it  was  I,  and  hesitated  before  they  spoke  to  me." 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


37 


of  which,  I  suppose,  Tom  sent  you — and  not  half  so  interesting, 
though,  I  suppose,  much  more  prudent.  Mr.  Hook,  of  Coventry, 
I  believe,  has  had  the  chief  hand  in  it.  Then  Eose,  Palmer, 
Ogilvie,  and  a  dozen  more  besides,  have  had  a  finger.  Many 
cooks  spoil  the  broth.  People  should  remember  that  there  is 
one  important  question  which  cannot  but  considerably  affect 
the  usefulness  of  the  most  prudent  and  nicely  balanced  publica- 
tions— i.e.  whether  it  will  be  read  or  not.  Of  course  this  single 
manifesto,  being  a  dry  affair,  is  not  of  much  consequence.  But 
a  question  has  been  raised  whether  all  the  tracts  that  come 
out  in  the  Society's  cause  ought  not  to  be  the  production  of 
a  committee,  or  at  any  rate  be  submitted  to  their  altera- 
tions. Newman  is  against  the  theory,  on  the  very  obvious 
principle  that  intense  stupidity  cannot  fail  to  be  the  principal 
quality  of  publications  sent  out  under  such  circumstances. 
.  .  .  There  is— Tom  has  of  course  told  you — a  synod  to  be  held 
here  in  the  middle  of  November  ;  it  is  particularly  important 
that  as  many  as  possible  should  attend.  If  you  want  any  more 
tracts  I  will  send  you  plenty.  You  need  not  be  so  over-scru- 
pulous as  to  the  way  of  distributing  them.  Laymen  are  not 
excluded  from  having  a  voice  in  the  Society — far  from  it.  It  is 
important  that  this  should  be  understood. 

To  his  Sister. 

February  1,  1834. 
My  dear  Anne, — The  election  of  the  Chancellor  took  place 
on  Wednesday,  and  went  off,  as  was  expected,  without  opposi- 
tion. As  usually  happens,  however,  on  such  occasions,  people 
are  now  making  up  for  their  inactivity  beforehand,  by  grum- 
bling at  what  has  been  done.  They  say  now  that  the  Duke 
certainly  was  not  the  man — they  have  been  taken  by  surprise. 
The  Liberals  declare  they  've  been  cheated,  and  many  of  them, 
Denison  among  others,  affirm  that  they  would  have  preferred 
•the  Archbishop,  so  the  end  of  it  is,  nobody  is  satisfied.  It 
really  seems  a  great  pity  the  Archbishop  was  not  proposed. 
The  majority  of  the  country  clergy  would  certainly  have 
voted  for  him.  However,  when  Keble  and  Newman  put 
his  name  forward  privately,  which  they  did,  some  little  time 


3» 


Letters  of  the 


ago,  it  was  received  with  such  coolness  that  no  blame  can 
attach  to  them  for  not  having  pursued  the  thing  further, 
though  many  now  begin  to  ask,  Why  did  not  you  propose  the 
Archbishop  ?  .  .  .  I  don't  know  whether  Newman  told  you, 
when  he  was  at  Derby,  that  he  was  going  to  stand  for  the 
Moral  Professorship ;  he  is,  and  has  a  tolerable  chance  of  suc- 
cess if  things  go  on  as  they  are — for  at  present  he  is  the  only 
candidate. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  was  always  an  interesting  study 
to  James  Mozley.  He  liked  to  detect  traits  of  nature  in  the 
great  man,  through  all  the  ceremonial  to  which  his  greatness 
subjected  him. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

February  15,  1834. 
My  dear  Maria, — .  .  .  The  chief  subject  of  news  that  I  can 
think  of  at  present,  is  the  Chancellor's  official  dinner-party  in 
London,  some  of  the  details  of  which  I  have  heard  from  those 
present.  The  Duke,  I  believe,  cut  rather  an  extraordinary  figure 
in  his  Chancellor's  gown,  which  is  a  very  stiff  and  academical 
kind  of  robe,  and  which,  moreover,  had  been  made  rather  too  long 
for  him.  However,  he  performed  his  part  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  company,  and  only  made  one  false  quantity  on  delivering 
his  Latin  speech,  which  was  a  very  good  one,  and  quite  to  the 
purpose,  though  it  is  conjectured,  from  various  circumstances, 
that  Dr.  Bliss,  the  Registrar  of  the  University,  had  a  good  deal 
more  to  do  with  the  composition  of  it  than  his  Grace.  Some 
judges  of  character  who  were  present  are  of  opinion  that  the 
Duke,  though  a  most  inflexible  person  in  his  general  course  of 
conduct,  does  not  carry  his  coolness  at  his  fingers'  ends  in  the 
way  many  great  men  do ;  since  in  the  delivery  of  his  speech  he 
betrayed  something  not  unlike  confusion  and  awkwardness, 
and  on  one  occasion  addressed  himself  in  energetic  language  to 
a  servant  who  had  made  a  mistake  about  a  bottle  of  wine. 
The  Duke  had  all  his  presentation  plate  on  the  table,  as  well  as 
the  Dresden  China  which  the  King  of  Prussia  had  given  him.  .  .  . 
So  far  so  good.  The  only  blotch  in  the  whole  affair  was  the 
presence  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  who  made  no  scruple  of 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


39 


swearing  every  other  word  he  said ;  and  moreover  subverted 
the  order  of  etiquette  by  himself  proposing  the  Chancellor's 
health,  which  properly  belonged  to  the  Vice-Chancellor  to  do. 
Lord  Eldon  was  present  in  great  force,  and  quite  unable  to 
abstain  from  talking  about  his  consistency,  while  compliment- 
ing Dr.  Kidd  in  a  very  short  but  enthusiastic  speech,  which 
no  one  understood  till  it  was  over.  Lord  Eldon  is  coming 
down  with  the  Duke  to  the  Installation  at  the  end  of  next 
term.  Oxford,  I  suppose,  will  be  more  gay  than  it  has  ever 
been  since  the  visit  of  the  Allied  Sovereigns. 

It  is  generally  thought  that  the  Church  is  looking  up  again. 
A  year  ago  Ministers  put  forward  definite  designs  against 
Church  property.  All  these  seem  to  have  vanished.  Articles 
are  appearing  in  Eadical  journals  proving  that  the  House  of 
Commons,  reformed  as  it  is,  is  fast  losing  its  authority ;  and 
that  when  a  party  now  has  anything  to  accomplish,  it  does  not 
address  itself  to  the  House  of  Commons,  but  to  the  public. 
The  address  to  the  Archbishop  is  not  given  as  an  instance  of 
this,  which  is  rather  unfair ;  for  it  is  in  its  more  general 
character  an  unequivocal  instance  of  a  cause  being  effectu- 
ally strengthened  without  any  communication  with  the 
governing  powers.  Newman  was  closeted  the  other  day  two 
hours  with  Dr.  Eouth  of  Magdalen,  receiving  his  opinions  as  to 
his  work,  which  were  very  complimentary.  Kaye,  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  has  had  a  correspondence  with  Bose  about  it,  particu- 
larly on  the  point  of  the  Disciplina  areani,  which  is  a  subject  the 
Bishop  himself,  Newman  thinks,  has  touched  in  certain  letters 
in  the  British  Magazine,  signed  "  Pliilalethes  Cantabrigiensis." 
.  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  Mozley. 

It  must  have  been  after  the  two  hours'  colloquy  mentioned 
in  this  letter,  that  Dr.  Eouth  used  to  speak  of  that  "  clever 
young  gentleman  of  Oriel,  Mr.  Newman." 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  15,  1834. 
Newman  is  not  Moral  Philosophy  Professor,  as  you  will 
probably  have  seen  by  the  papers.    Hampden  offered  himself 


4o 


Letters  of  the 


the  very  day  before  the  election;  and,  being  a  Bainpton 
Lecturer,  and  an  Aristotelian,  and  a  Head  of  a  House,  and  a 
Liberal,  and,  moreover,  a  stupid  man  in  his  way,  he  was  of 
course  the  successful  candidate.  It  is  a  pity  the  thing  has 
turned  out  so,  if  it  was  only  for  the  title-page  of  Newman's 
volume  of  sermons,  which  has  just  come  out.  Of  course  you 
will  get  it,  if  you  haven't  already. 

The  new  Marriage  Bill  is  making  rather  a  stir  here  ;  Newman 
and  all  his  party  declare  it  to  be  quite  unecclesiastical  to  give 
out  the  intention  of  certain  people  to  enter  into  a  purely  civil 
ceremony  during  divine  service,  and  in  church.  A  small  meet- 
ing was  held  to  discuss  the  subject  in  Newman's  room  last 
night,  at  which  it  was  resolved  to  get  up  a  petition  against  it ; 
and  Harrison  of  Christ  Church  (the  English  Essay  when  you 
were  at  Oxford),  has  been  intrusted  with  the  wording  of  it.  I 
see  from  a  letter  of  Tom's  to  Christie,  that  John  is  thinking  of 
something  of  the  kind  at  Derby.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  just  the 
thing  to  petition  about.  It  gives  so  little  satisfaction  to  any 
party,  that  almost  anything  would  upset  it.  Indeed  Lord  J. 
Kussell  has  almost  said  as  much.  I  suppose  none  of  you  think 
of  coming  to  Oxford  at  the  Commemoration.  Newman  has 
suggested  to  me  one  of  my  brothers  coming.  As  Charles  was 
invited  at  Derby,  I  should  think  this  invitation  of  Newman's 
alludes  more  particularly  to  him.  What  does  Charles  say  to 
it  ?  The  proposal,  in  my  humble  opinion,  is  not  to  be  sneezed 
at.  I  dined  at  the  Newmans'  the  other  day — very  pleasant; 
music,  etc.  etc.  We  had  a  splendid  sermon  from  Sewell,  of 
Exeter  College,  at  the  assizes,  on  the  Origin  of  Evil.  Not  one 
person  in  the  church  understood  one  sentence  of  it.  Sewell 
had  threatened  his  friends  with  a  metaphysical  discourse  on 

that  occasion.     According  to  M  's  definition  it  certainly 

was  sufficiently  metaphysical,  and  that  was  the  only  sense  in 
which  any  one  in  the  church  could  be  sure  it  was  so.  Half  the 
University  are  going  up  for  Firsts.  I  am  most  unfortunate  in 
my  time.  I  have  now  got  into  that  swing  of  reading,  that  if 
I  had  half  a  year  before  me,  I  think  I  could  almost  make 
myself  sure  of  my  first.  I  am  conceited  enough  to  think 
this.    But  it  is  a  very  different  case  when  one  has  only^  a 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


4i 


few  weeks.  After  three  years  of  idleness  it  is  very  long  before 
one  can  chain  one's-self  down  to  a  fixed  course  of  reading.  To 
be  sure,  you  will  say  I  ought  not  to  have  been  idle ;  very  true. 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Brother  John. 

Oxford,  June,  16,  1834. 
My  dear  John, — The  installation  has  passed  off  very  well. 
The  only  mistakes  being  the  Duke's  false  quantities,  which  were 
treated  very  indulgently.  The  Duke  himself,  whether  it  was 
that  his  face  was  lighted  up  by  the  joyfulness  of  all  about  him, 
or  whether  he  looked  as  he  always  does,  I  don't  know ;  but  his 
face  had  certainly  a  much  kinder  expression  about  it  than  I 
had  expected  to  see.  I  should  say  that,  dressed  in  a  Court  dress 
of  black,  with  his  Chancellor's  robe  on  him,  he  was  the  most 
respectable-looking  old  gentleman  I  ever  saw — not  to  mention 
any  loftier  qualities.  He  has  a  face  that  would  suit  any  situa- 
tion and  character.  In  lawn  sleeves,  I  have  no  doubt,  he  would 
look  the  most  episcopal  person  on  the  Bench.  He  was  evidently 
sometimes  much  affected  by  the  enthusiastic  cheering  he  met 
with,  if  one  can  gather  anything  from  a  certain  tremulous 
motion  in  the  mouth,  which  is  a  very  sensitive  part.  The 
cheering,  by  the  by,  was  more  tremendous  than  anything  I 
ever  heard.  The  theatre  was  like  a  bell  going.  We  all  of  us, 
of  course,  sported  the  most  correct  principles  on  the  occasion. 
We  hissed,  groaned,  and  laughed  at  Dissenters,  Whigs,  Lord 
Grey,  and  his  family  in  office.  The  people  from  London  must 
have  been  astonished  at  finding  themselves  in  a  Tory  mob.  The 
feeling  displayed  will  probably  influence  many  in  their  votes 
in  the  House.  One  M.P.  present,  who  voted  a  month  ago  for 
the  Dissenters'  Bill,  has  declared  that,  seeing  the  strong  feeling 
in  the  University  against  it,  he  shall  consider  himself  justified 
in  not  continuing  to  give  it  his  support.  The  Duke,  at  a  dinner 
at  St.  John's  on  Thursday,  said  that  what  he  had  seen  here  had 
put  the  thing  in  a  new  light  to  him ;  upon  which  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  stood  up  and  said  that  he  was  glad  to  hear  the 
Duke  make  such  an  avowal,  as  he  was  a  person  always  to  follow 


42 


Letters  of  the 


up  what  he  had  said.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  is  the  most 
grisly  monster  I  ever  set  eyes  on.  He  is  fearful  to  behold.  No 
wonder  such  odd  stories  get  about  him,  like  ghost  stories  about 
a  gloomy  house.  He  was  well  received,  however,  and  I  was 
glad  of  it.    Old  Lord  Eldon  was  in  the  theatre  the  second  day. 

Henry  Wilberforce  has  gone  down  with  Tom  to  Moreton 
Pinkney,  for  two  or  three  days.  .  .  .  Froude  is  staying  at  Bar- 
badoes,  and  going  on  very  well  there.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

James  Mozley. 

In  the  Long  Vacation  of  1834,  James  was  one  of  a  reading 
party,  so  called,  in  Wales,  under  Mr.  Mitchell  of  Lincoln 
College,  and  writes  home, — where  Miss  Newman  was  then 
paying  her  first  visit, — at  the  close  of  his  stay : — 

To  his  Sister. 

September  12,  1834. 

My  dear  Anne, — I  am  very  happy  to  feel  myself,  with  Tom, 
the  joint  cause  of  keeping  Miss  Newman  amongst  you  a  few 
days  longer  than  she  might  otherwise  have  stayed.  It  has 
been  raining  here  almost  continuously  for  the  last  month,  and 
the  harvest  is  all  but  ruined.  .  .  . 

The  gaiety  of  A.  has  at  last  come  to  an  end,  much  to  the 
disgust  of  many  of  our  party,  who  now  intend  leaving  as  soon 
as  possible.  I  intend  leaving  this  day  three  weeks  and  going 
straight  to  Oxford.  The  gaiety  has  terminated  chiefly  from 
want  of  people  to  carry  it  on.  Such  has  been  the  zeal  of  all, 
that  I  don't  think  any  other  cause  could  have  stopped  it. 
But  the  beauties  of  the  place,  the  two  Miss  C.s,  left  yester- 
day. Two  other  beauties  from  C.  are  leaving  to-day,  besides 
numerous  other  departures.  Things  now  look  like  Oxford 
in  the  Long  Vacation.  The  Cambridge  men,  I  think,  I  once 
told  you,  were  remarkable  for  their  matrimonial  tendencies  on 
expeditions  of  this  kind ;  well,  they  have  carried  off  the  palm 
this  year,  though  they  are  only  two  to  our  ten ;  ...  at  least 
so  it  is  reported  on  the  best  authority,  though  nobody  knows 
how  they  intend  to  manage  after  the  fatal  stroke,  for  neither  of 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


43 


them  possess  an  atom  of  money.    On  Tuesday  there  was  an 

evening  party  at  Mrs.  's,  which  was  to  be  a  kind  of  break 

up,  all  intending  to  leave  the  next  morning.  Two  of  our  party, 
who  were  favoured  with  an  invitation,  declared  that  towards 
the  close  of  the  evening  the  scene  became  quite  affecting ; 
absolutely  tears,  pocket-handkerchiefs,  and  everything  that  could 
be  desired  on  such  an  occasion.    Wednesday  being  a  rainy  day, 

none  left — so  there  was  a  second  winding  up  at  Mrs.  's,  to 

which  we  all  went,  myself  amongst  them.  We  had  no  second 
edition  of  the  tears,  but  we  nevertheless  had  a  very  pleasant 
evening  and  very  good  singing.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  Mozley. 

This  reading  party  was  in  preparation  for  the  final  examina- 
tion, which  resulted  in  a  great  disappointment.  A  first  was 
what  was  reasonably  hoped  for ;  nothing  less  than  a  second  could 
be  contemplated,  and  a  third  was  the  upshot. 

From  his  Sistee. 

Friary,  November  30,  1834. 
My  dear  James, — I  hope  you  don't  break  the  seal  with  any 
apprehension  of  a  home  lecture  coming  upon  you  as  a  sort  of 
appendix  to  your  present  mortification.  I  write  because  I  feel 
tempted  to  give  you  my  sympathy  as  soon  as  possible,  and  to 
assure  you  that  some  of  us  at  least  are  not  "  immeasurably  dis- 
gusted "  with  what  we  must  consider  your  failure.  It  would 
have  been  an  injustice  to  you  not  to  feel  very  considerably  dis- 
appointed at  first,  because  I  think  that  both  from  your  reading 
and  natural  abilities  we  had  a  right  to  expect  more  from  you  ; 
but  the  battle  is  not  always  to  the  strong,  even  supposing  you 
were  well  prepared,  and  as  Tom  always  lays  the  blame  of  any 
failure  on  the  whole  family,  not  on  the  individual,  I  suppose 
I  must  console  you  by  saying  that  the  family  genius  is  not 
made  for  examinations  ;  being  too  slow  and  deliberate — unable 
to  call  up  its  resources  at  a  moment's  warning.  I  shall,  however, 
indeed  be  very  angry  with  you  if  you  allow  yourself  to  despond 
on  this,  and  do  not  rather  consider  this  ill-success  as  a  proof  of 
the  necessity  for  greater  system  and  method  in  your  reading. 


44 


Letters  of  the 


My  view  is  (but  you  may  very  justly  think  I  know  nothing 
about  it)  that  you  ought  to  read  next  year  as  much  as  you  have 
done  this  last,  and  with  more  method,  and  then  you  may  still 
have  a  good  chance  for  a  Fellowship,  on  which  you  know  I  had 
always  fixed  my  affections  for  you. 

December  1. 

I  wrote  so  far  last  night.  ...  I  find  I  have  not  mentioned 
either  papa  or  mamma.  You  can  guess,  just  as  well  as  I  can  tell, 
their  feelings  on  the  occasion.  Mamma  said  she  had  a  right 
to  feel  very  much  disappointed  at  first,  because  she  knew  that 
in  a  day  or  two  she  should  get  over  it  and  think  no  more 
about  it.  Papa  is  not  very  fond  of  talking  on  the  subject,  but 
he  will,  very  cheerfully,  on  any  other,  and  fell  asleep  after 
dinner  just  as  comfortably  as  usual.  So,  on  the  whole,  things 
are  rather  better  than  I  expected.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

A.  M. 

To  this  letter  is  appended  a  little  postscript,  from  a  younger 
sister :  "  My  love  to  you — though  you  are  floored. — F.  M." 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  December  4,  1834. 
I  have  now  received  full  and  particular  accounts  of  my  third 
from  different  sources,  all  quite  authentic.  Cox,  one  of  the 
examiners,  told  Christie  that  on  Friday  night  (the  class  list 
came  out  on  Saturday  afternoon)  my  name  was  definitely  down 
on  the  Second  Class  list.  One  might  fancy  that  a  settlement  at  so 
late  an  hour  was  surely  a  final  one.  However,  the  next  morning 
it  occurred  to  them  that  there  were  some  men  in  the  second  class 
very  little  inferior  to  those  in  the  first,  and  that,  therefore,  it 
was  not  fair  to  them  that  mine,  with  some  other  names,  should 
appear  with  theirs.  Accordingly  the  next  morning  they  sent  for 
me  again,  and  gave  me  a  piece  of  Latin.  If  I  had  been  quick 
over  it,  it  all  would  have  been  right.  As  it  was,  from  natural 
slowness,  together  with  being  considerably  fagged  with  the 
former  day's  work,  and  also  an  over-anxiety  about  being  correct, 
the  viva  voce,  too,  dinging  in  my  ears  all  the  time,  I  am  free 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


45 


to  confess,  as  M.P.s  say,  that  I  was  a  very  considerable  time 
about  it — more  than  three  hours.1 

This  passage  is  given  to  illustrate  that  "slowness"  which, 
under  certain  trying  conditions  (only),  was  a  characteristic  of 
his  mind,  and  which  told  against  him  in  examinations. 

February  16,  1835. 

My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  Newman  is  particularly  desirous  of 
having  some  pamphlet  on  Suffragans  written,  and  caused  Dr. 
Burton  to  be  sounded  on  the  subject  the  other  day.  Burton, 
however,  did  not  see  it — he  had  written  pamphlets  enough, 
he  thought.  Burton  has  some  reason  to  be  cautious,  as  he  is 
within  an  ace  of  a  bishopric ;  as  he  is,  he  is  just  of  all  others,  the 
man  for  the  present  Ministry — respectable,  but  not  very  strong. 
Newman  does  not  write  himself,  because  he  thinks  a  pamphlet 
does  no  good  without  a  name,  and  he  is  modest  enough  to  think 
that  his  own  is  not  sufficiently  weighty.  Bose  has  taken 
Arnold  under  his  peculiar  protection.  In  an  appendix  to  his 
Durham  lectures,  he  bestows  several  pages  of  comment  on 
Arnold's  advice  to  young  clergymen,  appended  to  his  third 
volume  of  sermons.  Arnold's  advice  goes  to  discarding  all  con- 
troversial works,  which,  he  insinuates,  have  proceeded  for  the 
most  part  from  men  of  "  feeble  and  prejudiced  minds,"  and  sub- 
stituting in  their  place  Bacon  and  Aristotle,  and  such  writers 
as  expand  the  intellect. 

.  .  .  [After  a  list  of  names  of  men  engaged  to  be  married] 
Froude  himself  is  beginning  to  joke  about  matrimony.  He 
says  in  a  letter  to  Christie,  "  There 's  nothing  left  for  you  and 

1  The  following  sentence,  in  a  letter  from  home,  shows  that  he  did  not 
allow  his  disappointment  to  weigh  too  strongly  on  him  : — 

"December  3,  1834. 
"...  I  think  you  have  done  wisely  to  set  about  something  new  ;  as  fresh 
hopes,  and  objects  of  interest,  reconcile  one  to  the  past  more  than  all  the 
thinking  in  the  world.  I  am  quite  ready  to  believe  all  said  about  the 
examiners  and  their  system,  though  I  shall  abstain  from  talking  to  other 
people  of  the  reasons  that  have  prevented  your  succeeding  as  you  ought  to 
have  done  ;  because  the  world  is  apt  to  put  its  own  construction  on  the 
most  profound  reasoning  that  can  be  brought  forward  on  such  occasions. 
Mamma  wants  you  to  come  home  as  soon  as  you  have  got  all  you  wish  out 
of  your  great  folios." 


46 


Letters  of 'the 


me  but  to  many  ;  for  a  wife  sticks  to  you,  but  a  friend  may  cut 
and  run."  This  is  a  conclusion  to  certain  complaints  about 
friends  not  writing  to  him.  He  was  heard  from  a  few  days 
ago.  I  read  his  letter  to  Newman ;  the  first  part  is  somewhat 
desponding,  but  he  recovers  his  spirits  toward  the  end.  His 
cough,  though  not  entirely  gone,  has  gone  off  considerably.  .  .  . 

The  Cambridge  undergraduates  have  subscribed  and  made  up 
a  prize  for  the  best  account  of  Coleridge's  System  of  Philosophy, 
open  to  the  whole  world.  We  here  look  certainly  very  small 
in  comparison  with  such  great  doings.  I  had  Hamilton  to  my 
rooms  the  other  day ;  he  is  acquainted  with  many  Cambridge 
men,  and  says  their  opinion  of  Oxford  is,  that  we  are  gentle- 
manly, but  shallow.  Have  you  seen  the  Autobiography  of  a 
Dissenting  Minister  ?  It  is  a  very  amusing  thing,  though 
vulgar,  rather.  If  you  wish  to  have  the  whole  series  of  Tracts, 
they  are  published  now  in  one  volume.  .  .  .  Mr.  Philip  Pusey  is 
suspected  of  a  leaning  to  Eadicalism,  because  he  said  he  would 
grant  the  Dissenters  all  that  a  conscientious  Dissenter  could 
ask.  It  would  take  some  time  to  find  out  whether  this  is 
sound  or  not.  It  is  an  ingenious  way  of  putting  the  thing. — 
Yours  affectionately,  James  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxfoed,  March  11,  1835. 
.  .  .  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  as  you  know,  has  thrown  the 
burden  of  resisting  the  Dissenters  entirely  on  the  Universities, 
merely  pledging  himself  not  to  force  any  measure  on  them. 
Accordingly,  the  Heads  of  Houses  are  expected  shortly  to 
take  the  subject  into  consideration.  How  their  deliberations 
will  end  is  not  known,  but  it  is  feared  they  will  propose 
substituting  a  declaration  instead  of  a  subscription.  Newman 
was  told  by  Pusey  the  other  day  that  the  Bishop  of  Exeter 
had  come  over  to  this  view.  His  (N.'s)  remark  was  that  he 
liked  seeing  men  come  out  in  their  true  character.  It  signifies 
little  what  the  Heads  of  Houses  do,  except  so  far  as  the  name 
goes,  if  they  only  give  a  sufficient  interval  between  their 
motion  and  the  Convocation  meeting  to  allow  of  bringing  up 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


47 


the  clergy  from  the  country.  These  latter  are  most  useful  on 
such  occasions,  as,  having  but  little  actual  connection  with  the 
University,  they  are  not  influenced  by  the  same  motives  of 
expediency — the  wish  to  keep  things  going — that  many  of  the 
residents  have.  However,  I  should  not  fear  much  if  the  matter 
were  left  to  the  resident  M.A.s. 

Newman's  pamphlet  on  Suffragans  will  be  out  immediately. 
It  is  astonishing  the  speed  with  which  he  composes ;  and  that 
when  he  has  a  dozen  other  things  hanging  on  his  mind  at 
the  same  time.  It  is  certainly  a  good  illustration  of  Eose's 
maxim,  that  those  who  have  most  to  do  are  the  fittest 
persons  to  take  in  hand  any  new  work.  The  second  volume 
of  Sermons  is  also  coming  out.  He  dedicates  it  to  his  friend 
Bowden — an  old  college  friendship — I  think  the  author  of 
a  Tract  by  a  Layman.  We  had  a  long  discussion  over  the 
wording  of  the  dedication  the  other  evening.  I  have  no  more 
marriages  to  tell  you  of.  The  future  Mrs.  Keble  is  at  present 
a  Miss  Clarke.  I  hear  nothing  of  her,  except  a  doubtless 
calumnious  assertion  that  she  is  a  blue-stocking.  He,  Keble, 
gave  a  most  agreeable  poetry  lecture  the  other  day,  proving 
Homer  to  be  a  Tory  (shall  we  say  Conservative  ?),  and  finally 
stating  reasons  why  it  was  that  all  real  poets  were  Tories.  It 
is  a  pity  you  are  debarred  by  the  language  from  either  hearing 
them  or  reading  them,  should  they  be  published,  which  doubt- 
less they  will  be. 

The  assizes  have  been  going  on  here  lately — the  judges, 
Park  and  Coleridge.  The  latter  is  an  Oxford  man,  a  friend  of 
Keble's.  Park's  extreme  respect  for  the  University,  not  exclud- 
ing even  the  junior  members  of  it,  was  most  amusing.  One 
University  man  was  brought  up  by  an  impudent  javelin  man, 
in  open  Court,  for  having  made  a  disturbance  in  trying  to 
force  his  way  in,  on  which  the  following  dialogue  took  place : 

"  My  Lord,  I 've  brought  up  a  man  for  ."  "  A  man,  sir !  A 

gentleman,  you  mean,  I  suppose."    "  My  Lord,  he  was  making 

a  disturbance  ."    "  Sir,  he  was  claiming  his  rights."    "  So, 

my  Lord,  I  took  him  by  the  collar  "    "  Collar,  sir  !  what 

business  had  you  to  take  the  gentleman  by  the  collar  ? "  So 
the  javelin  man,  in  spite  of  all  law  and  justice,  was  obliged  to 


43 


Letters  of  the 


give  up  his  captive,  who  was  forthwith  assured  by  old  Park 
that  he  need  not  disturb  himself  at  all  about  the  matter. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

At  this  time  James  Mozley  was  engaged  on  the  English 
essay.  I  was  visiting  Mrs.  Newman  at  Eosebank,  and  wrote 
to  my  mother,  "  Mr.  Eogers  was  saying  yesterday  that  Mr. 
Bridges  had  reported  James's  essay  to  be  a  very  good  one  ;  the 
meaning  was  brought  out  clearly ;  and  Mr.  Newman  said 
'James  certainly  brought  out  his  meaning  very  admirably  in 
some  things  he  did  for  us  at  the  examination.'  This  is  great 
praise  from  such  a  good  and  sincere  judge." 

To  his  Brother,  T.  M. 

"  My  labours  are  now  finished.  I  gave  in  my  essay — that  is, 
I  put  it  through  the  nick  in  Dr.  Bliss's  door  at  six  o'clock  on 
Saturday  morning ;  and  that  I  got  it  in  then  is  owing  entirely 
to  Bridges  having  stayed  up  with  me  the  whole  of  that  night 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  night  before  [to  help  in  copying 
it  out].  It  is  now  over,  and  I  shall  wipe  it  off  my  memory  as 
fast  as  possible." 

To  his  Mother. 

June  16,  1835. 

My  dear  Mother, — I  have  at  last  an  agreeable  piece  of  news 
for  you.  My  essay  has  gained  the  prize,  to  my  very  consider- 
able astonishment,  though  I  do  not  know  there  is  anything  to 
be  astonished  at,  for  I  should  think  I  probably  took  more  pains 
with  my  performance  than  any  other  who  wrote,  particidarly 
as  I  had  nothing  else  to  do.  But  somehow  or  other  success 
does  astonish  one — that  is  to  say  just  at  first.  The  feeling 
soon  dies  away,  and  joy  subsides  into  a  feeling  of  ordinary 
satisfaction,  so  that  though  I  have  only  heard  the  news  an  hour 
ago,  I  feel  now  only  a  very  moderate  and  chastened  degree  of 
pleasure  on  the  occasion.  This  process  in  the  mind  is  perhaps 
just  as  it  should  be,  and  prevents  one  from  becoming  conceited. 
You  need  not  expect  any  particular  pleasure  from  the  perusal 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozky,  D.D. 


49 


of  the  production  itself,  which  is  as  stupid  as  need  be,  and  as  in 
fact  it  must  be  from  the  nature  of  the  subject.  Do  any  of  you 
intend  to  see  me  spout  in  the  theatre  ?  You  must  write  soon 
to  congratulate  me,  for  one  chief  pleasure  on  these  occasions 
lies  in  these  petty  gratifications,  as  philosophers  would  call 
them.  The  day  of  Commemoration  is  to-morrow  (Wednesday) 
fortnight.  I  have  no  more  news  for  you.  If  any  come  up  it 
will  be  a  nice  opportunity  of  arranging  with  Mrs.  Newman  as 
to  the  promised  visit.  I  am  glad  to  say  Oriel  has  the  English 
verse  too;  so  we  shine  this  year,  you  see. — Your  affectionate 
son,  James  Mozley. 

There  was  a  family  gathering  at  Oxford  to  hear  the  essay. 
My  mother  and  brothers  came  up  from  Derby,  bringing  my 
two  youngest  sisters.  My  father  sends  a  few  happy  words, 
"  gratified  beyond  what  I  can  express,"  and  quotes  Napoleon's 
speech  to  his  soldiers,  "  My  children  have  covered  themselves 
with  glory."  Everything  went  well ;  the  weather  was  fine ;  the 
scene  in  the  theatre  beautiful ;  Mrs.  Newman  most  hospitable ; 
the  party  at  Eosehill  joining  with  ours  in  sight-seeing  and  all 
the  pleasures  of  the  occasion.  Mr.  Keble  was  up,  and  most 
kind  to  our  party,  speaking  of  the  essay  to  my  mother  as  excep- 
tionally good  and  full  of  promise ;  and  taking  us  into  his  old 
rooms  at  Corpus. 

After  the  breaking  up  of  the  Oxford  party,  J.  B.  M.  visited  his 
friend  Mr.  Bridges,  at  Denton  Court,  near  Canterbury,  writing 
very  happily  of  the  days  passed  there.  From  thence  he  and 
his  friend  crossed  over  to  Calais  for  a  day — his  first  taste  of 
Continental  travel.  After  one  whole  day  his  letter  shows  how 
much  he  took  in,  both  of  the  services  in  churches  and  the 
general  aspect  of  the  town,  and  the  marked  differences,  extending 
to  the  smallest  particulars,  between  Calais  and  an  English  town. 
Sight-seeing  was  always  a  strain  on  him :  his  mind  worked 
hard ;  he  was  conscious  of  labour ;  so,  on  his  return  from  this 
glimpse  of  foreign  life,  he  writes  : — 

D 


50 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sister. 

August  24,  1835. 
On  Friday,  Rogers  lionised  us  over  "Woolwich,  which  was 
interesting  enough  in  its  way,  and  one  is  glad  to  have  seen  it ; 
but  really,  after  much  and  continuous  sight-seeing,  striking 
things  of  all  kinds  so  pall  upon  one  that  I  don't  think  the 
descent  of  a  comet  itself  would  excite  more  than  the  most  otiose 
attention ;  and  accordingly  it  was  with  the  calmest  indifference 
that  I  surveyed  27,000  cannon  and  some  hundred  thousand 
cannon-balls.  This  is  a  state  of  mind  which  one  ought  to  be  far 
from  boasting  of ;  on  the  contrary,  I  suppose  if  one  had  a  proper 
degree  of  imagination  one  would  be  thunderstruck  at  such 
spectacles. 

The  name  of  Dr.  Hampden  has  appeared  already  in  these 
pages,  but  upon  the  death  of  the  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity, 
Dr.  Burton,  it  figures  in  a  more  prominent  manner,  awaking  a 
storm  of  controversy  which  was  not  to  die  out  with  the  occa- 
sion that  awoke  it,  but  to  be  revived  in  the  course  of  years 
with  renewed  force. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

Oxford,  February  13,  1836. 
"We  have  been  all  in  a  commotion  for  the  last  week,  owing 
to  the  report  of  Hampden's  appointment  [to  the  Regius  Pro- 
fessorship of  Divinity].  The  news  first  came  out  on  Monday 
morning,  and  of  course  excited  great  astonishment.  There 
was  no  doubt,  however,  about  the  fact ;  Shuttleworth  had  got 
it  from  the  person  himself ;  not  that  any  official  communi- 
cation had  come  down ;  but  that  intimation  had  been  given 
that  it  was  to  be  so.  Accordingly  people  began  to  bestir 
themselves  immediately.  That  very  day  Pusey  gave  a  dinner 
to  the  leaders  of  orthodoxy  in  the  University,  at  which 
Newman,  and  Hook  of  Coventry,  who  happened  to  be  up  as 
select  preacher,  and  others  were  present.  A  petition  was 
agreed  to,  to  be  signed  by  the  resident  Masters,  expressive  of 
their  condemnation  of  Hampden's  tenets,  and  their  entire  want 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


5i 


of  confidence  in  him.  However,  a  dinner-party  was  not  to 
settle  everything ;  and  a  public  meeting  was  the  next  thing  to 
think  of.  So  the  next  day  (Tuesday)  was  occupied  in  stirring 
up  people.  It  was  also  thought  requisite  that  an  expose"  of 
Hampden  should  be  got  up,  especially  as  the  length,  stupidity, 
and  obscurity  of  his  Bampton  Lectures,  in  which  his  chief 
enormities  were  contained,  had  deterred  most  people  from  ever 
looking  into  them ;  so  that  he  might  have  maintained  the  Moham- 
medan system  in  them,  for  anything  the  majority  of  persons 
know  about  the  matter.  Newman  took  this  expose"  in  hand,  but 
was  thrown  back  a  whole  day  by  a  stupid  mistake  of  Palmer's 
(of  Worcester),  who  told  him  he  need  not  trouble  himself  about 
it,  as  Dr.  Bliss  (the  most  unlikely  person  in  the  world)  had  taken 
it  up.  Afterwards  it  turned  out  that  Dr.  Bliss,  as  Palmer 
said,  had  taken  up  the  thing,  but  differed  from  Newman  "  in 
the  mode  "  of  doing  it ;  that  is,  he  intended  to  send  an  article  to 
The  Standard  on  the  subject,  just  as  if  a  newspaper  comment 
at  all  stood  in  the  place  of  a  grave  and  formal  exposition  of  a 
man's  theological  opinions.  However,  the  instant  the  mistake 
was  discovered  Newman  commenced  work  again ;  and  proceeded 
in  a  most  miraculous  way — day  and  night  I  may  almost  say, 
for  he  sat  up  reading  and  writing  the  whole  of  Wednesday 
night.  He  expected  the  thing  [the  Ehicidations]  to  be  printed 
and  ready  to  send  off  to  town  yesterday  afternoon,  but  it 
was  not  finished  even  last  night.  I  suppose  by  this  time  it  is ; 
and  some  copies  already  sent  to  town  to  the  Archbishop  and 
others.    However,  I  have  not  come  to  the  meeting  yet. 

On  Wednesday  morning  a  meeting  was  held  in  Corpus 
common  room,  attended  by  about  forty,  a  petition  was  read 
and  agreed  on,  and  by  that  evening  had  received  forty- 
five  signatures.  The  next  evening,  Thursday,  it  was  sent 
up  to  town  with  seventy-three  signatures  altogether;  which 
is  a  large  number ;  half  of  the  resident  masters ;  especially 
considering  how  many  would  be  prevented  by  personal  con- 
siderations from  signing  it.  It  is  astonishing  how  strongly  men 
feel  on  the  subject.  Greswell  of  Corpus  said  he  should  consider 
himself  guilty  of  an  act  of  apostasy  from  the  Christian  religion 
if  he  did  not  protest  against  the  appointment.    Dr.  Gilbert  of 


52 


Letters  of  the 


Brasenose  declared  the  same  thing.  Dr.  Cardwell,  Principal  of 
St.  Alban  Hall  was  going  about  for  two  or  three  days  quite 
furiously,  with  a  passage  from  Hampden's  moral  philosophy 
lectures  in  his  pocket,  and  declaring  that  he  ought  to  be  turned 
out  of  professorship  and  hall,  and  house  and  home,  and  every- 
thing. It  must  be  strong  feeling  which  could  raise  the  Heads 
of  Houses  :  they  had  positively  a  meeting  on  Thursday  to  deli- 
berate whether  a  petition  in  due  form  from  the  whole  Univer- 
sity in  its  corporate  capacity  should  not  be  presented  against 
Dr.  Hampden's  appointment,  he  himself  being  present  at  the 
meeting.  This  morning,  to  wind  up  the  matter,  H.  gives 
out  that  he  has  withdrawn.  Whether  or  not  he  would  have 
been  appointed  against  the  almost  unanimous  feeling  of  the 
University,  I  don't  know.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  MOZLEY. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

February  20,  1836. 
The  last  time  I  wrote,  Hampden  and  the  Begius  Professor- 
ship was  all  there  was  to  talk  about;  and  it  has  been  the 
grand  theme  of  interest  ever  since.  You  will  see  by  to- 
day's papers  that  he  is  finally  gazetted.  This  is  the  present 
termination  of  all  our  struggles.  Eose  sent  word  of  the  event 
to  Newman  yesterday,  officially  as  Chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  ; 
to  whom  the  petition  against  the  appointment  had  been 
committed.  The  note  was  very  strong,  considering  it  was  an 
official  thing,  and  implicated  the  Archbishop.  It  deeply  con- 
doles with  the  University  on  the  "  great  evil "  that  has  befallen 
it,  and  could  only  suggest  as  a  consolatory  thought  that  no  effort 
had  been  spared  to  prevent  it.  It  seems  the  great  argument 
with  Ministers,  and  one  which  Eose  admitted  had  a  "  deplorable 
strength,"  was  the  appointment  of  Hampden  to  the  Moral 
Philosophy  Chair,  after  the  publication  of  the  Bampton  Lectures. 
I  don't  think  myself  we  can  fairly  attach  much  blame  to 
Ministers ;  indeed,  as  things  go,  it  seems  to  have  been  a  fairly 
conscientious  appointment  on  their  part.  One  person  in  the 
Ministry  was  strongly  against  it,  and  that  was  Charles  Wood,  an 


Rev.  7.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


53 


Oriel  man,  and  brother  of  the  Wood  who  tried  for  the  Fellow- 
ship about  three  years  ago.  The  instant  he  heard  of  Hampden's 
probable  appointment  he  went  to  Lord  Melbourne  and  remon- 
strated, but  was  met  with  the  answer  that  all  was  settled.  Lord 
Melbourne  himself  had  heard,  it  appeared,  from  some  quarter  or 
other,  of  Hampden's  heterodoxy,  and  had  forthwith  consulted  the 
Bishop  of  Llandaff,  who  assured  him  the  charge  was  perfectly 
futile.  This  answer,  as  was  natural,  coming  from  a  Bishop  who 
had  sometimes  opposed  the  Ministry,  and  who  had  a  character 
for  orthodoxy,  in  a  sort  of  way,  satisfied  Lord  Melbourne,  and  he 
forthwith  communicated  his  intention  to  Hampden  ;  so  Wood's 
remonstrance  came  too  late.  When  the  stir  began  at  Oxford, 
and  a  petition  against  the  appointment  had  made  its  appear- 
ance, Ministers  were  of  course  excessively  angry  with  Copleston 
for  having  taken  them  in.  Meanwhile  Hampden  wrote  up  to 
resign  his  appointment  conditionally — that  is,  he  was  willing  to 
do  so  if  Ministers  wished  ;  and  so  the  matter  stood.  I  suppose, 
however,  they  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  break  an  engage- 
ment in  order  to  gratify  a  party  politically  opposed  to  them. 
Lord  Melbourne  confessed  to  Charles  Wood  his  astonishment 
at  the  number  of  heterodox  names  he  had  heard  of  as  having 
started  out  of  Oxford  in  late  years.  "  Pray,  Wood,  how  is  it 
that  in  the  bosom  of  your  sluggish  University,  and  out  of  a 
College  by  no  means  the  largest  in  it,  so  many  heresiarchs  have 
lately  sprung  up :  First  there  is  Whately,  Arnold,  and  Hampden, 
then  there  is  Mr.  Keble  and  Mr.  Newman,  who,  I  hear,  are  quite 
as  great  theologians  as  the  others,  only  in  another  way."  This 
anecdote  comes  in  a  letter  from  Samuel  Wood. 

Henry  Wilberforce  has  been  up  this  last  week,  and  stays  over 
next ;  his  brother  Sam  preaches  to-morrow  at  St.  Mary's. 
Certainly  H.  W.  is  as  little  changed  by  being  a  husband  and  a 
father,  as  any  one  I  know.  He  is  just  the  same  perfectly  irre- 
sistibly ludicrous  person  he  always  was. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  Mozley. 

The  excitement  upon  the  question  was  universal.  A  friend 
writes  from  Oxford,  after  a  dinner  party  :  "The  guests  sought 
no  other  subject ;  it  furnished  inexhaustible  materials.  The 


54 


Letters  of  tlie 


Provost  of  Oriel,  by  your  brother  Tom's  account,  is  quite  worn 
out  by  the  hard  service  that  the  M.A.s,  by  their  frequent 
meetings,  impose  upon  the  poor  Doctors.  You  will  hear  there 
is  to  be  a  Convocation  on  the  2  2d,  to  consider  the  proposal 
of  the  Doctors."  The  Christian  Observer,  commenting  on 
the  Elucidations,  professed  to  have  discerned  Dr.  Hampden's 
heresy  as  early  as  1834.  The  Watchman  assured  its  readers 
that  "  Protestantism  was  stabbed  to  the  very  vitals,"  and  that 
if  Dr.  H.  was  appointed  there  was  an  end  of  all  things.  A 
"  Tory  Country  Clergyman,"  to  whom  the  Elucidations  were  lent 
on  the  condition  of  giving  his  opinion,  remarked  that  "  the 
Doctor  is  not  fairly  treated.  These  very  men  were  quiet  at 
the  appointment  of  Whately,"  etc. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

Oxford,  Tuesday,  March  22,  1836. 
We  have  had  our  grand  meeting  to-day.  More  by  a  great 
many  came  up  on  our  side  than  I  think  were  ever  expected. 
There  could  not  have  been  fewer  than  450  in  the  theatre,  out 
of  which  only  30  at  the  most  were  on  Hampden's  side.  Two 
o'clock  was  the  appointed  hour  for  Convocation,  so  accordingly 
by  that  time  the  Convocation  House  and  all  the  space  about 
the  theatre  and  Divinity  School  was  crowded  with  Masters  in 
black  gowns,  Doctors  in  red,  some  with  caps,  some  without ; 
some  faces  academical,  others  obviously  clergymen  fresh  from 
the  country  :  all  collecting  in  masses  and  groups,  talking  and 
listening  to  one  another  ;  the  former  perhaps  having  the  ascend- 
ency. In  a  short  time  there  was  a  move  for  the  theatre,  the 
Convocation  House  being  too  small  for  the  number.  The 
bachelors  and  under-graduates  rushed  into  the  galleries,  where 
we  waited  about  half-an-hour  before  the  procession  appeared. 
Then  the  business  went  on  in  the  usual  form,  which  Anne, 
having  been  once  present,  may  remember,  though  she  may  have 
forgotten  a  good  deal  of  the  Latin  she  heard  on  the  occasion. 
On  the  Vice- Chancellor  putting  the  question,  Does  any  master 
wish  to  express  his  opinion  ? — Vaughan  Thomas  began  a  power- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


55 


ful  address  in  the  first-rate  style  of  pompous  Latinity,  in  which 
he  supplicated  the  Proctors  to  pause  before  they  put  their 
veto,  or,  in  case  they  were  resolved,  he  insisted  on  the  right 
of  the  Masters  to  have  the  thing  brought  to  a  division,  and 
the  number  on  each  side  counted  up.  This  he  proved  from 
the  wording  of  the  statute,  and  he  seemed  to  me  and  to 
everybody  else  to  make  out  his  case  very  clearly.  However, 
neither  his  supplication  nor  his  demand  had  any  effect.  After 
his  speech  was  ended  the  Vice-Chancellor  put  the  question 
Placet  or  Non-placet,  which  was  responded  to  by  a  tremendous 
shout  of  Placet  from  the  area.  While  the  actual  noise  was 
going  on,  the  Proctors  pronounced  their  veto.  Nobody  heard 
them,  and  the  procession  moved  out  of  the  Theatre,  leaving  the 
Masters  to  stomach  their  temporary  defeat  as  well  as  they 
could — if  defeat  it  could  be  called ;  for  while  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  was  marching  out,  the  same  division  took  place  that 
Anne  will  remember  last  time ;  the  Placets  crowded  together 
on  one  side,  presenting  a  sort  of  wall  or  phalanx,  by  the  side  of 
which  the  Doctors  passed  in  their  movement  out.  Many  of 
the  Doctors  left  the  procession  and  joined  the  Masters  amid 
the  shouts  of  the  under-graduates.  The  minority  appeared  as 
contemptible  as  you  can  well  imagine — certainly  not  more 
than  30,  and  one  man,  who  counted,  said  only  25.  One  of  the 
most  pleasant  sights  in  the  whole  scene  was  old  Routh,  the 
venerable  head  of  Magdalen  College,  who  appeared  for  the  first 
time,  I  suppose,  in  these  many  years,  in  his  place  among 
the  Doctors.  At  the  first  glimpse  of  his  wig,  a  general 
acclamation  was  raised,  which  the  old  gentleman  returned 
with  several  bows,  in  all  the  courtesy  of  the  old  school.  On 
the  meeting  being  broken  up,  a  general  cry  rose  up — "  To 
Brasenose  Hall."  Thither  the  non-residents  adjourned  in 
a  body,  and  put  their  names  to  a  petition,  requesting  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  to  call  a  Convocation  next  term  for  the  expression 
of  some  censure  on  Hampden,  and  so  the  matter  ends.— Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

Mr.  Eickards,  the  three  Wilberforces,  two  Kebles,  Ryder, 
Trower,  Dr.  Spry,  and  others,  are  up  of  our  College. 


56 


Letters  of  the 


In  the  April  of  1836  he  stood  a  second  time  for  a  Fellowship 
at  Oriel. 

To  his  Mother. 

Oxford,  April  10,  1836. 
My  dear  Mother, — Yesterday's  silence  would  doubtless  give 
you  by  implication  the  result  of  the  election  ;  for  which  I  hope 
you  have  been  prepared.  I  am  unsuccessful  again :  but  I 
believe  there  was  no  helping  the  matter,  the  feeling  in  Oriel 
was  so  strong  against  having  two  brothers  in  the  College.  If 
I  had  passed  an  examination  very  much  better  than  the  one  I 
did,  it  would  have  been  all  the  same,  those  who  voted  against 
me,  would  have  voted  against  me  anyhow  ;  that  is,  if  I  had  not 
shown  positively  superhuman  power  in  the  examination.  What 
sort  of  an  examination  I  did  pass,  I  do  not  know,  and  have  not 
heard  ;  but  I  should  think  it  was  superior  in  point  of  scholar- 
ship to  the  one  I  passed  last  time.1  It  seems  certainly  as  if  I 
was  destined  to  be  unfortunate  in  University  matters.  The 
essay  last  year  is  the  only  faint  gleam  of  prosperity  that  has 
shone  upon  me  throughout  my  course,  and  a  somewhat  unsub- 
stantial one  that  appears  to  have  been.    However,  I  don't  know 

1  Extract  from  The  Guardian,  Feb.  28,  1883  :— 

"The  Late  Professor  Mozlet. 

"Sir, — I  venture  to  send  you  an  anecdote,  which,  if  you  can  find  room  for 
it,  will  interest  not  a  few  of  your  readers.  In  one  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  late 
Professor  Mozley,  which  appeared  in  your  columns  shortly  after  his  decease,  it 
is  mentioned  that  in  standing  for  a  Fellowship  at  Oriel  he  produced,  as  his 
English  essay,  just  a  sentence  of  a  dozen  lines,  but  such  a  sentence  as  no 
other  of  the  candidates  could  have  written.  In  an  old  commonplace  book 
of  my  own,  I  find  an  entry  made  by  myself,  after  reading  the  sentence.  The 
subject  given  appears  to  have  been  'Prejudice.'  My  note  from  memory, 
written  the  same  evening,  is  as  follows : — '  Use  of  the  principle  of  Pre- 
judice in  our  nature  :  to  create  the  feeling  of  certainty.  The  method  whereby 
in  so  large  a  proportion  of  cases  we  have  to  arrive  at  truth — viz.,  our  own 
research,  in  which  we  go  on  analysing,  comparing,  constructing  theories — has 
a  tendency  to  make  us  think  the  truth  we  so  arrive  at  a  thing  that  we  have 
produced.  But  prejudice  projects  the  truth  from  the  eye,  and  gives  it  an 
independent  existence,  and  objective  face  of  its  own.  It  is  then  a  principle 
of  our  nature,  a  natural  antagonist  against  a  natural  evil. — J.  B.  M.  in 
to-day's  paper.'  My  own  memory  may  perhaps  hardly  have  done  justice 
to  the  writer's  original  thought ;  but  you  will  judge  how  it  interested 

"  One  of  the  Electors." 

See  p.  xli.  Introduction  to  Historical  and  Theological  Essays. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


57 


that  I  have  any  right  to  complain,  as  long  as  one  is  enabled  to 
preserve  one's  spirit  and  equanimity ;  which  I  certainly  do  to 
a  greater  degree  perhaps  than  I  have  any  right  to,  considering 
that  my  prospects  are  somewhat  awkward,  and  that  I  ought  to 
be  looking  about  now  to  provide  for  myself.  I  feel  that  success 
has  a  far  greater  power  to  elevate  me  than  failure  to  depress 
me.  Whether  this  is  an  exactly  proper  frame  of  mind  or 
not,  I  don't  know.  But  one  cannot  help  following  one's 
natural  temperament,  and  where  that  has  such  obvious  advan- 
tages, as  it  has  to  me  now,  and  saves  so  much  present  uneasi- 
ness, one  is  more  inclined  to  make  full  use  of  it,  than  to  be  at 
all  suspicious  about  its  propriety.  Well,  what  is  to  be  done 
now  ?  Newman  has  a  scheme  for  me,  which  I  will  mention  to 
you,  though  it  does  not  bear  out  what  I  said  just  now, 
about  providing  for  myself.  Newman  wishes  me  to  stay  up 
in  Oxford  still,  and  read.  That  was  the  only  reason  why  he 
wished  me  to  get  in  at  Oriel ;  and  that  having  failed,  he  has 
now  this  plan  for  me  :  Pusey,  the  Canon,  finding  his  house  too 
large  for  him,  and  thinking  also  that  his  house  and  income 
were  never  intended  by  the  original  benefactors  of  the  Church 
to  be  used  only  for  private  convenience,  is  going  to  take  in  three 
or  four  men  to  give  each  of  them  apartments,  and  also  the  free 
use  of  his  library.  In  return  for  this  they  are  to  read — 
divinity  I  suppose,  or  subjects  connected  with  it ;  following 
at  the  same  time  the  bent  of  their  own  minds  as  to  the 
particular  course  of  reading;  and  only  referring  to  Pusey  when 
they  think  they  want  advice  and  assistance.  This  is  a  liberal 
plan.  Pusey,  in  short,  onljr  claims  to  give  men  an  excuse 
and  object  for  staying  up  after  their  degree ;  he  wishes  above 
everything  to  encourage  the  study  of  theology,  as  one  great 
way  of  pouring  in  some  light  on  this  ignorant  age ;  ignorant, 
that  is,  as  to  all  sacred  learning  and  primitive  views.  I 
cannot  give  the  exact  details  of  the  scheme,  or  how  we  are 
to  live  together,  and  what  we  are  to  see  of  Pusey,  and  of 
each  other — but  there  is  the  general  arrangement.  The  only 
thing  against  it  is,  that  it  is  not  providing  for  one's-self. 
However,  if  there  is  no  immediate  means  of  effecting  that, 
.  .  .  there  seems,  on  the  whole,  much  to  say  in  favour  of  it. 


58 


Letters  of  the 


You  may  consider  if  you  like  [in  still  supplying  inevitable 
expenses],  that  you  are  giving  money  into  the  Church.  You 
may  fairly  guess  that  I  have  no  particular  predilection  for  the 
thing,  so  far  as  one's  natural  hopes  and  fancies  influence  me. 
It  is  not  a  very  pleasant  thing — however  one  may  rely  on 
Pusey's  perfect  conscientiousness — to  receive  so  much  from  an 
individual's  liberality,  but  I  suppose  these  are  feelings  to  be  got 
over.  Will  some  one  write  to  me  on  Monday  ?  I  am  going 
down,  I  think,  to  Moreton  Pinkney,  where  Tom  has  gone  to-day. 
When  is  the  ceremony?  You  have  something  there  to  console 
amidst  these  mishaps. — Yours  very  affectionately, 

James  Mozley. 

The  ceremony  here  spoken  of  was  his  brother  John's 
approaching  marriage  with  Jemima,  Mrs.  Newman's  second 
daughter,  which  took  place  on  April  28, 1836.  The  day  passed 
most  happily,  but  shortly  after  Mrs.  Newman  became  seriously 
ill ;  the  attack,  after  some  fluctuations,  ending  fatally  on  the 
1 3th  of  May.  This  is  not  the  occasion  to  dwell  on  the  loss  so 
keenly  felt  by  all  privileged  to  know  Mrs.  Newman,  and 
especially  by  all  members  of  the  family  into  which  her  daughter 
had  married. 

To  his  Mother. 

Oxford,  May  21,  1836. 
My  dear  Mother, — Anne  has  not  time  to  write  to-day  her- 
self, so,  as  you  expect  a  letter  to-morrow,  she  has  commissioned 
me  to  write  instead.  The  funeral  took  place,  as  was  intended, 
this  morning  at  about  nine.  Tom  and  myself  walked  up  to 
Iffley  early  in  the  morning,  at  a  little  past  seven.  They  were 
to  have  left  at  eight,  but,  as  it  was,  it  was  nearer  half-past  when 
we  started.  Some  friends  of  the  Newmans  who  had  been 
invited,  attended  in  church — Dr.  and  Mrs.  Pusey,  Copeland, 
Eogers,  and  others.  Williams  of  Trinity  read  the  service;  I 
believe  Mrs.  Newman  had  expressed  a  sort  of  wish  that  he 
should.  The  vault  was  within  the  rails  in  the  chancel  of  St. 
Mary's.  The  Newmans  are  as  cheerful,  now  it  is  over,  as 
one  could  expect.    Newman  himself  is  wonderfully  improved 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


59 


in  spirits.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  funeral  he  was  dreadfully 
dejected,  his  whole  countenance  perfectly  clouded  with  grief, 
and  only  at  intervals  breaking  out  into  anything  like  cheerful 
conversation.  But  whether  it  is  that  the  funeral  service,  and 
the  rite  altogether,  has  thrown  a  consolatory  colouring  on  the 
sad  event,  or  that  he  does  not  think  it  right  to  go  on  grieving, 
now  that  all  is  regularly  over,  certain  it  is  he  seems  much  more 
like  himself  now  than  he  has  been  for  the  week  past.  .  .  . 
Harriett  does  not  go  down  to  you  immediately ;  she  remains 
in  Oxford  [i.e.  Eosebank]  this  term,  and  her  brother  keeps  her 
company.  When  she  purposes  going  to  Derby  I  cannot  exactly 
say ;  but  I  should  hope  it  will  not  be  long  after  the  end  of 
term.  Newman  too,  I  hope,  will  go  down  some  time  in  the 
summer.  It  is  really  quite  necessary  that  he  should  recreate 
himself  every  now  and  then — and  I  think  he  feels  this  ;  John, 
Jemima,  Anne,  you  may  look  out  for  the  end  of  next  week.  .  .  . 

One  quality  Mrs.  Newman  had — a  very  admirable  one  in  a 
person  who  had  mixed  much  with  the  world — and  that  is,  sim- 
plicity of  mind.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  she  must  have 
had  considerable  influence  on  Newman's  character  in  this  point ; 
though  one  is  generally  disposed  to  think  his  a  case  where  the 
maternal  influence  has  been  but  slight  in  forming  the  man.  If 
I  know  anything  of  Newman's  natural  character,  I  should  say 
that  he  had  lain  under  singular  temptations  to  what  goes  greatly 
against  simplicity  of  mind — that  is,  to  "  high  notions,"  as  we 
call  it — a  sort  of  leaning  to  the  aristocratic  world,  which  is  a 
failing  natural  enough  to  minds  of  conscious  power  and  refine- 
ment. Newman  has  steered  clear  of  this,  as  we  well  know.  I 
confess,  in  these  days,  when  people  indulge  their  own  pride 
without  scruple  or  restraint,  and  educate  their  children  to  be 
like  themselves,  and  then  cover  it  all  with  the  surface  of  a 
religious  education,  with  words  and  phrases,  and  spiritual  pro- 
fessions of  all  kinds,  it  is  really  pleasant  to  find  a  person  really 
moulding  in  some  way  the  character  of  her  family  by  the  unos- 
tentatious influence  of  mere  natural  simple-mindedness.  It 
is  certainly  true  that  one  sees  more  in  persons'  character  when 
they  are  dead  than  one  did  in  their  lifetime.  We  are  apt  to 
overlook  real  graces  of  the  mind,  merely  because  they  may  be 


6o 


Letters  of  the 


unaccompanied  with  power  and  grandeur  of  character.  Then  we 
regret  afterwards  that  one  did  not  appreciate  the  person  more. 
I  am  writing  in  Dr.  Pusey's  dining-room ;  I  really  flatter 
myself,  I  get  on  very  well  with  the  Puseys,  which  is  some- 
thing to  say,  considering  the  strangeness  of  the  situation. — 
Yours  affectionately,  James  Mozley. 

On  Tuesday,  the  27th  of  September  1836,  my  brother  Tom, 
now  vicar  of  Cholderton,  was  married  at  St.  Werburgh's,  Derby, 
to  Harriett,  the  elder  of  the  two  Miss  Newmans.  On  the  dis- 
persion of  the  family  gathering,  James  paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  John 
Christie,  late  Fellow  of  Oriel,  now  vicar  of  Badgeworth. 

J.  B.  M.  to  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  12,  1836. 
I  left  Badgeworth  on  Thursday  afternoon.  You  seem  from 
your  letter  to  have  expected  me  to  be  in  Oxford  two  or  three 
days  before  I  was ;  perhaps  I  should  not  have  been  so  late  in 
coming  up,  and  I  rather  reproach  myself  with  it.  But  nothing 
disturbs  me  so  much  as  your  short  bustling  visits  of  a  day  or 
two ;  when  you  are  come  and  gone  again  before  you  have  got 
the  din  of  coaches,  porter,  and  packages  out  of  your  ears.  I 
like  to  stay  a  sufficient  time  in  the  place  to  be  able  to  have  a 
quiet  enjoyment  of  the  scene  about  me,  and  be,  as  it  were,  an 
integral  part  of  the  household  for  the  time  being.  Now  I  stayed 
long  enough  at  Badgeworth  to  enjoy  my  visit  extremely.  We 
were  a  very  sociable  little  family  party,  and  seemed  altogether 
to  suit  the  small  parsonage  admirably.  Christie  is  a  most  dili- 
gent visitor;  almost  every  afternoon,  from  one  to  five,  he  is 
going  about.  In  his  walks  with  me,  he  called  at  several  houses. 
.  .  .  This  morning  I  should  have  gone  with  Newman  to 
Littlemore,  only  it  rained ;  I  dine  with  him  to-day,  to  meet 
Cornish  of  Exeter,  who  is  rising  into  a  member  of  the  Aposto- 
lical party.  Hampden  has  been  preaching  this  morning  at 
Christ  Church,  in  his  turn  as  Canon.  There  was  an  overflowing 
congregation,  from  some  expectation,  I  suppose,  that  he  might 
make  allusion  to  his  persecutions.    However,  he  gave  only  a 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


61 


simple  practical  sermon,  which  was  only  remarkable  for  being 
excessively  dry.  .  .  .  The  Archbishop  has  been  staying  at 
Hursley  with  Sir  W.  Heathcote,  where,  of  course,  he  saw  a 
great  deal  of  Keble.  He  pronounced  himself  afterwards  more 
pleased  with  his  visit  there  than  any  other  in  the  course  of  his 
tour.  Newman  is  working  away  at  his  new  book  [Romanism 
and  Popular  Protestantism],  and  finds  it  very  hard  head-work  ; 
he  has  written  some  parts  four  or  five  times  over.  Eogers 
comes  up  next  week,  and  then  we  will  have  a  consultation  over 
parts  of  it,  as  well  as  on  Froude's  papers.  I  was  at  the  theo- 
logical meeting  on  Friday  evening ;  Newman  gave  a  paper  with 
several  quotations  from  Osborne — most  dreadful  passages. 
Their  horror,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  was  somewhat  lost  upon 
me,  from  a  circumstance  that  I  need  not  explain. — Yours 
affectionately,  James  Mozley. 

This  "  circumstance,"  a  tendency  to  be  drowsy  under  sermons, 
attended  him  through  all  his  later  life.  He  seemed  to  sleep 
often  in  conspicuous  places,  where  his  companions  would  gladly 
have  observed  at  least  the  attitude  of  attention,  but  he  heard 
through  the  mist  of  drowsiness ;  and  often  came  away  in  spite 
of  appearances  with  a  correct  idea  of  the  preacher's  topic  and 
manner. 

Oxford,  November  26,  1836. 
My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  Things  have  been  very  quiet  this 
term.  "We  have  no  condemnation  of  heretics,  no  pamphlets 
coming  out,  etc.  The  Provost  just  alluded  in  the  most  distant 
way  to  the  sore  subject,  in  his  sermon  last  Sunday.  He  ob- 
served that  it  was  a  disgusting  habit  in  persons  finding  fault 
with  other  people's  theology.  Nothing  tended  so  much  to 
make  the  mind  narrow  and  bitter.  They  had  much  better  be 
employing  themselves  in  some  active  and  useful  way.  This 
is  laughable  enough  as  coming  from  the  Provost,  who  has  been 
doing  nothing  else  but  objecting  all  his  life.  .  .  .  Golightly 
told  me,  the  other  day,  that  this  £1000  [given  by  him  to  the 
Bishop  of  London's  fund  for  building  new  churches]  has  been 
rather  a  source  of  annoyance  to  him  than  otherwise.    He  finds 


62 


Letters  of  the 


himself  talked  to  and  appealed  to  in  society  in  consequence. 
I  should  have  thought  more  disagreeable  things  might  have 
happened  to  Golightly  than  this ;  but  there  is  a  more  serious 
nuisance  still.  People  are  so  impudent  as  to  think  that  having 
given  so  much  is  a  reason  for  his  giving  more,  or  at  any  rate  a 
sufficient  ground  for  asking  him.  Accordingly,  he  had  a  letter 
from  a  person  entirely  unknown  to  him,  the  other  day,  asking 
him  to  give  something  to  a  church  that  was  equally  unknown 
to  him,  on  the  express  ground  that  he  had  subscribed  £1000 
to  the  London  churches.  Again,  he  had  a  letter  from  a  clergy- 
man asking  the  loan  of  a  £1000.  What  connection  this  person 
could  discover  between  the  want  of  churches  in  London  and 
his  own  want  of  cash  it  is  not  easy  to  see,  but  Golightly  gave 
him  a  settler  in  the  letter  he  wrote  in  answer.  As  a  set-off 
against  this  annoyance,  he  received  the  civilities  and  acknow- 
ledgments of  the  Bishop  of  London  [Blomfield]  when  staying  at 
Pusey's,  and  was  asked  to  call  at  Fulham,  whenever  he  came 
up  to  town.  This  was  only  proper.  .  .  .  F.  has  been  at  the 
Lakes  during  the  Long,  and  seen  a  good  deal  of  Wordsworth 
and  Hartley  Coleridge.  Wordsworth  spoke  of  Newman's 
sermons,  some  of  which  he  had  read  and  liked  exceedingly. 
He  spoke  too  of  the  Christian  Year,  of  course  admiring  it,  but, 
not  with  as  much  zest  as  one  would  have  liked.  The  truth  is, 
I  believe,  that  is  Wordsworth's  weak  point ;  he  has  no  great 
fancy  for  other  poets.  .  .  . — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  MOZLEV. 

To  his  Brother  T.  M. 

December  14,  1836. 
I  think  of  going  home  on  Friday,  on  which  day,  Anne  tells 
me,  H.  gives  a  grand  evening  party.  Being  a  person  fond  of 
gaiety,  I  cannot  of  course  resist  being  present  on  the  occasion, 
especially  after  the  sobriety  and  almost  gloom  of  a  term  at 
Oxford.  It  seems  laughable  to  talk  about  gloom  in  Oxford, 
where  one  sees  all  sorts  of  men  every  day,  and  meets  with 
new  views  and  fresh  things  and  persons  at  every  turn.  But 
somehow  or  other  the  presiding  genius  of  the  place  is  not  a 
merry  one,  after  one's  under-graduate  days  are  over.  ...  I 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


63 


suspect,  after  all,  the  truth  is  that  when  one's  old  friends  have 
left  Oxford  it  is  a  changed  place,  and  that  it  is  a  very  natural 
consequence  to  follow  such  a  cause.  The  Lyras 1  are  at  last 
out ;  and  I  suppose  the  critique  on  them  will  be  out  too  before 
long.  S.  Wilberforce  finds  fault  with  the  hard  and  rash  versi- 
fication of  some,  and  insinuates  that  the  mind  of  the  composer 
had  probably  lived  too  much  apart  from  the  tenderness  and 
sympathies  of  domestic  life.  N.  was  considerably  amused 
with  this  cut  at  him  when  S.  W.  sent  him  the  critique  to 
read  over  some  little  time  ago.  .  .  .  Keble  has  been  up 
delivering  his  terminal  lecture.  He  dined  on  Tuesday  with 
Pusey,  together  with  Williams  and  Copeland,  for  the  purpose 
of  talking  over  the  new  translations  of  the  Fathers.  I  was 
not  present  at  their  deliberation.  .  .  .  H.  Wilberforce  seems 
settling  to  his  work  (The  Confessions)  with  diligence.  I  sent 
him  down  a  Vulgate  and  a  concordance  to  the  Vulgate  the 
other  day.  How  are  you  going  on  ?  I  suppose  this  is  too 
early  a  stage  in  the  business  to  put  such  a  question.  The 
Political  Economy  Professorship  is  vacant,  and  Merivale  and 
Maurice  of  Exeter  are  the  rival  candidates. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, James  Mozley. 

I  give  the  following  as  an  early  example  of  J.  B.  M.'s  study 
of  character  : — 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

March  1837. 

You  know   is  here.    I  don't  think  I  have  mentioned 

him  in  my  letters  yet.  He  is  not  quite  so  perfect  as  some  of 
his  relations,  .  .  .  not  that  I  have  really  much  to  say  against 
him ;  he  means  very  well  on  the  whole,  but  there  is  a  certain 
want  of  delicacy  about  his  mind,  which  prevents  one  from 
taking  to  him.  I  often  suspected  that  A.  was  annoyed 
with  his  defect  of  manners,  and  it  seems  I  was  not  wrong.  .  .  . 
Certainly  there  is  too  little  restraint  about  his  manners  ;  he  is 
what  one  might  call  too  free  and  easy  as  far  as  appearances  go, 
and  yet  I  have  no  doubt  he  means  to  be  perfectly  respectful. 

1  Lyra  Apostolica. 


64 


Letters  of  the 


But  here  his  deficiency  of  mind  comes  in.  He  has  not  that 
delicate  principle  of  respect  in  him  which  works  insensibly  in 
a  person's  manner  whether  he  thinks  of  it  or  not,  and  is  in 
fact  perfectly  consistent  with  great  ease  and  freedom. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  17,  1837. 

You  ask  about  .  .  .  .  He  is  the  author  of  that  article 

in  the  Quarterly,  which  contains  most  excellent  views.  Pusey's 
brother,  the  member,  told  him  it  was  thought  one  of  the 
greatest  triumphs  Newman  had  had,  getting  hold  of  the 
Quarterly.  Lockhart  finds  he  must  have  an  infusion  of  Oxford 
principles,  it  takes  with  people  now ;  that  is,  such  people  as 
read  the  Quarterly. 

Newman  has  given  me  a  copy  of  his  book  {Romanism  and 
Popular  Protestantism).  He  presented  it  with  much  grumbling 
and  complaints  at  being  obliged  to  give  away  so  many ;  but, 
however,  I  should  have  that  copy,  because  it  was  greased.  I 
told  him  I  should  value  the  gift  so  much  the  more  from  seeing 
the  sacrifice  it  was  to  him  to  make  it.  .  .  .  There  is  to  be 
another  affray  in  the  Christian  Observer  next  month.  H.,  of 
Merton,  a  leader  of  that  party,  preached  in  St.  Mary's  the 
other  Sunday  against  the  younger  members  of  the  University 
holding  religious  discussions  on  certain  doctrines  then  much 
brought  forward — alluding,  of  course,  to  Newman's  and  Pusey's 
views,  which,  nevertheless,  he  said  he  himself  believed  to  be 
true.  It  is  rather  good  these  people  objecting  now  to  religious 
conversation.  Not  that  I  have  ever  heard  any  myself.  I  don't 
call  talking  about  Newman  and  Pusey  and  the  Apostolical 
Succession,  or  High  Church  and  Low  Church,  religious  con- 
versation.— Yours  affectionately,  J.  Mozley. 

Shortly  after  he  writes : — "  Mathison  told  us  that  Murray 
had  expressed  his  fears  to  him  about  that  article — on  the 
strength  and  ultra  character  of  the  thing.  He  would  have 
given,  he  said,  a  thousand  pounds  to  have  it  left  out.  How- 
ever, he  had  been  reconciled  a  little  time  after,  on  finding  it 
did  not  give  such  general  offence  as  he  had  anticipated." 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  65 


To  his  Sister  Maria. 

Oxford,  March  29,  Wednesday  in  Easter  Week,  1837. 

I  have  been  uncommonly  busy  of  late,  but  we  are  now  en- 
joying ourselves,  all  of  us.  Rogers  and  Wood  and  Wilson  are 
up  for  a  few  days.  The  two  former  came  on  Saturday,  and  with 
them  Williams  (the  member)  and  Mr.  Mathison,  who  left 
yesterday  morning.  It  was  disappointing  enough  to  me  that 
I  could  see  so  little  of  the  party  the  first  and  larger  half  of 
their  stay,  my  work  taking  up  every  minute  of  time  till  Thurs- 
day morning.  We  all  dined  here  on  [Easter]  Sunday,  Mrs. 
Pusey  having  engaged  Newman  six  weeks  beforehand  to  dine 
on  Easter  Day.  We  had  also  the  whole  party  to  dinner  here 
yesterday,  except  Williams  and  Mathison,  who  had  gone 
down.  .  .  .  Newman  so  enjoys  a  party  of  old  friends  coming 
up,  it  is  quite  pleasant  to  see  it.  It  is  only  a  pity  those  things 
are  so  short.  Wood  and  Wilson  go  away  to-morrow.  Eogers 
staying  over  Sunday,  and  dines  again  at  Pusey's,  to  meet  Sir 
George  Grey  and  Mr.  Colquhoun,  who  are  passing  through,  and 
staying  the  Sunday,  principally  to  hear  Newman  preach.  They 
are  both  Ministerialists — the  former  a  nephew  of  Lord  Grey. 
They  are  both  Oriel  men,  and  First  Classes,  and  perhaps  have 
a  curiosity  about  the  Oriel  School.  It  will  be  funny  enough 
to  see  how  Pusey  will  manage  with  them  ;  he  has  no  idea  of 
economising,  and  will  surprise  them  a  little.  I  am  staying  up 
the  whole  vacation,  though  when  Wilson  asked  me  to  go  down 
with  him  to  Hursley,  I  felt  strongly  tempted.  .  .  . 

I  must  begin  now  to  think  of  Thomas  a  Becket  again  ;  Pusey 
keeps  telling  me  there  are  plenty  of  things  for  me  to  do  when 
I  have  finished  it,  which  is  a  consoling  prospect.  However, 
Newman  pushes  me  on  the  subject  every  now  and  then,  and 
Archdeacon  Froude  has  mentioned  the  papers  two  or  three 
times  in  his  letter  to  N. — not  that  he  seems  in  a  hurry ;  but 
still,  on  the  whole,  there  seems  to  be  a  call  for  it. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Towards  the  end  of  1837  James  stood  for  a  Fellowship  at 
Lincoln.  I  feel  I  may  give  his  own  account  of  the  affair, 
because  it  is  more  than  confirmed  by  a  note  added  in  the  end 

E 


66 


Letters  of  the 


by  Mr.  Newman,  which  calls  J ames  the  first  confessor  in  the 
cause,  and  commends  the  "  sweetness  "  with  which  he  takes 
the  disappointment ;  at  the  same  time  urging  his  stay  in 
Oxford. 

Oxford,  November  6,  1837. 
My  dear  Mother, — Bad  news  for  you.  I  am  sorry  for  it, 
but  it  cannot  be  helped.  Of  course,  there  is  all  that  consola- 
tion for  us  afterwards  which  usually  falls  to  the  lot  of  unsuc- 
cessful candidates.  They  say  I  was  the  best  ©f  the  whole  set, 
and  acknowledged  so  to  be,  which  is  not  anything  after  all  to 
plume  one's-self  upon,  for  there  were  only  four  candidates 
besides  myself,  only  it  allows  one  to  take  the  present  failure  as  a 
misfortune  only,  which  is  a  comfort  in  a  sort  of  way.  We  have 
a  right  to  be  composed  and  magnanimous  on  the  subject,  if  we 
chose  to  be  so,  and  can  derive  anything  from  such  innocent 
consolations.  I  had  the  Rector's  two  votes,  and  three  others, 
Michel,  Atkinson,  and  Kettle.  All  my  supporters,  I  hear,  were 
very  warm  in  my  favour.  The  Eector  commenced  proceedings 
in  chapel,  declaring  his  intention.  He  said  he  should  be  very 
sorry  for  things  to  come  to  that  pass,  but  if  they  did,  he  should 
certainly  give  me  his  casting  vote.  However,  there  were  seven 
on  the  other  side,  so  his  casting  vote  was  not  called  for.  D.,  a 
school-fellow  of  mine,  and  one  of  the  non-elected,  called  on  the 
Eector  immediately  after  to  take  leave.  He  (that  is  the  Eector) 
told  him  he  was  very  much  astonished  at  the  result  of  the 
election,  and  that  it  was  very  different  from  what  he  expected 
when  he  entered  the  chapel.  ...  I  have  just  returned  from 
taking  a  run  with  Newman,  and  talking  over  what  is  to  be 
done.  Both  he  and  Pusey  wish  me  very  much  to  stay  in 
Oxford,  and  say  it  is  my  place.  Newman  is  indignant  that 
we  should  allow  ourselves  to  be  driven  out  of  Oxford  in 
this  way  by  such  a  miscellaneous,  irrational  principle  of 
decision  as  what  seems  to  prevail  in  Lincoln  College.  In 
reality,  one  may  say  so  without  self-conceit  coming  in  to 
the  matter.  From  what  I  am  told,  the  majority  had  nothing 
at  all  to  say  against  the  judgment  of  the  minority.  They 
were  quite  right,  only  they  did  not  chose  to  have  me.  .  .  . 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


67 


I  heard  a  few  days  ago  that  some  of  them  had  a  notion 
I  was  Eadical,  which  was  contradicted  immediately.  How- 
ever, impressions  last  after  the  cause  is  gone,  and  Oriel 
is  a  suspicious  place  to  come  from ;  and,  perhaps,  there  is  a 
kind  of  confusion  in  some  minds  between  the  new  principles 
and  Radicalism,  the  only  point  of  similarity  being  the  newness  in 
each — each  wishing  for  something  different  from  what  had  been. 
As  for  future  plans,  I  suppose  there  is  nothing  just  for  the 
present  better  than  staying  in  Oxford.  I  have  pledged  myself 
to  prepare  Froude's  Thomas  h  Becket  papers,  and  I  ought  to  be 
near  Newman  while  I  am  doing  it — at  least  some  part  of  the 
time.    N.  says  I  shall  be  able  to  get  a  curacy  near. 

There  are  reasons  why  the  answers  to  this  letter  should  be 
given,  though  with  some  apologies  to  the  reader. 

From  his  Sister. 

Friary,  November  8,  1837. 
Owing  to  the  perversity  of  the  Oxford  post,  we  did  not  get 
your  letter  till  this  morning.  But  we  had  gathered  that  you 
were  unsuccessful  from  your  silence,  and  only  supposed  you 
were  in  no  hurry  to  tell  bad  news.  We  give  you  now  credit 
for  more  magnanimity,  and  are  only  sorry  that  our  sympathy, 
for  I  will  not  say  condolence,  should  not  arrive  when  you 
expected.  Of  course  we  were  a  little  disappointed  at  first, 
though  we  never  for  a  moment  doubted  that  you  deserved  suc- 
cess ;  but  it  is  pleasanter  to  win  than  to  lose.  However,  such 
disappointment  is  soon  got  over.  .  .  .  One  can  only  regret  it 
on  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  and  that,  after  all,  is  not  worth 
thinking  of.  What  stupid  men  they  must  be  !  I  suppose  John 
Wesley  has  frightened  them  from  ever  choosing  a  person  of 
mind  or  energy.  Mamma  was  very  much  pleased  with  your 
letter  this  morning,  and  with  Mr.  Newman's  postscript,  which 
it  was  very  good  of  him  to  write.  It  would  be  very  unreason- 
able in  us  to  be  dissatisfied  when  everybody  says  you  did  the 
best.  Mamma  has  been  reading  papa  your  letter  j  he  is  "  proud 
of  having  such  a  son,"  though  perhaps  he  might  have  been 
willing  that  his  acknowledged  merits  were  more  substantially 


68 


Letters  of  the 


rewarded.  He  wishes  to  leave  your  future  plans  entirely  in 
Mr.  Newman's  hands,  and  would  have  you  be  guided  by  him. 
We  of  course  all  feel,  as  much  as  you  can  do,  how  desirable  it 
would  be,  if  possible,  for  you  to  stay  in  Oxford.  I  cannot 
think  with  satisfaction  of  any  other  place  for  you  as  yet, 
though  I  should  soon  be  reconciled,  if  it  were  found  necessary. 
...  In  Oxford  you  will  be  gaining  experience  and  a  right  to 
teach  ;  therefore  a  curacy  near  Oxford  seems  much  the  -best,  if 
it  could  be  got  by  waiting  a  little.  .  .  .  Dr.  Pusey  is  extremely 
kind,  and  mamma  feels  inclined  that  you  should  for  the  pre- 
sent avail  yourself  of  his  offer,  though  she  leaves  it  quite  to 
you.  I  know  that  you  must  feel  some  inconveniences  in  your 
present  kind  of  life,  and  if  you  feel  them  strongly  I  would 
have  you  take  lodgings.  You  are  an  economical  person,  and 
have  the  credit  of  being  so  both  with  papa  and  mamma.  I  do 
not  mean  to  be  ungracious  to  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Pusey,  to  whom  we 
all  feel  so  much  obliged,  but  still  you  may  feel  it  would  be 
desirable  to  be  entirely  independent ;  and  their  kindness,  which 
does  so  much,  perhaps  can't  do  this.  I  have  a  message  from 
mamma  about  your  cold.  If  it  is  not  better,  she  says  you  had 
better  have  some  advice,  and  not  let  it  hang  about  you.  Miss 
Keen  (our  amiable  and  excellent  Devonshire  friend)  desires 
her  best  thanks  for  your  remembering  her  at  such  a  time.  She 
makes  up  her  mind  that  there  is  something  much  better  for 
you,  and  has  visions  of  "  fat  livings,"  which  are  rather  dis- 
tasteful to  mamma,  who  never  fixes  her  affections  on  such 
things.  .  .  .  Yours  very  affectionately,  A.  M. 

In  the  end  of  this  letter  are  a  few  lines  from  my  mother  to 
Mr.  Newman  : — 

Mrs.  Mozley  to  Mr.  Newman. 

November  8,  1837. 
My  dear  Mr.  Newman, — Accept  my  warmest  thanks  for  the 
few  words  of  kindness  you  were  good  enough  to  send  me  in 
James's  letter.  They  would  have  been  more  than  sufficient  to 
console  me  under  a  keener  disappointment.  Many  friends  say, 
with  you,  that  there  is  no  doubt  a  greater  good  in  reserve  for 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


69 


him ;  but  what  greater  good  can  he  have,  or  can  I  desire  for 
him,  than  the  sympathy  and  zealous  kindness  of  such  friends 
as  you  and  Dr.  Pusey  ?  I  hope  I  can  say  that  I  never  coveted 
riches  or  high  place  for  my  children.  A  reputation  has  been 
what  I  have  most  desired  for  them,  and  I  am  sure  I  am  more 
in  the  way  of  my  desire  being  granted  when  any  circumstance 
strengthens  the  friendship  of  yourself  and  Dr.  Pusey,  than  in 
obtaining  a  Lincoln  Fellowship. — Believe  me  to  be  ever  truly 
yours,  Jane  Mozley. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  reputation  here  desired  is  precisely 
the  reputation  her  son's  works  have  subsequently  gained  for 
him. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  9,  1837. 
My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  Thanks  for  your  most  cheering  letter. 
People  seldom  get  congratulations  and  compliments  on  not 
getting  Fellowships.  I  am,  it  seems,  one  of  those  fortunate 
individuals.  I  gave  Newman  his  part  to  read,  and,  Pusey  being 
with  him  at  the  time,  left  it  there.  He  asked  if  he  was  to 
read  the  whole  of  it.  I  said  certainly,  if  he  liked,  but  the 
first  part  had  no  connection  with  Mm.  When  I  returned  again 
some  hours  after,  he  said  he  had  been  guilty  of  an  act  of 
a>epoia,  which  Greek  word  means  going  against  one's  con- 
science. The  act  turned  out  to  be  that  be  had  read  the  whole 
letter.  Also  it  came  out  that  he  had  read  my  mother's  part  to 
Dr.  Pusey.  ...  Of  course  I  am  staying  on  here  for  the  present. 
Newman  has  a  scheme  for  taking  a  house,  and  occupying  it 
with  a  sufficient  number  of  men  without  Fellowships,  but  who 
wish  to  stay  up  regularly  in  the  University.  He  has  written 
to  W.  Froude,  who  is  threatened  with  his  old  complaint,  and 
advised  against  going  on  with  his  profession,  and  he  has  spoken 
to  Johnson  of  Magdalen  Hall.  I  talked  with  the  latter  to- 
day ;  he  has  a  strong  leaning,  I  think,  to  the  thing.  These 
lodgings,  the  idea  is,  may  be  paid  out  of  the  Society's  fund, 
and  those  who  benefit  by  it  in  return  give  a  portion  of  their 
exertions  to  the  cause.    I  send  you  some  memorials  of  the 


70 


Letters  of  the 


Bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man ;  they  were  given  me  to  send  where 
I  could.  I  believe  there  is  a  considerable  chance  of  saving  the 
bishopric,  if  there  is  only  feeling  enough  shown  for  it. 

Pusey's  sermon  is  making  a  great  fuss.  I  suppose  it  is  the 
first  time  of  the  Eevolution  being  formally  preached  against  since 
Sacheverel's  time.  Newman  has  heard  from  Eivington,  asking 
whether  he  will  continue  his  support  to  the  British  Critic  under 
new  editorship,  to  which  N.  has  replied  that  there  must  first 
be  an  editor  that  he  approves  of.  I  have  set  to  again  at  Froude's 
papers,  and  purpose  working  steadily ;  it  is  more  steady  than 
hard  working  that  is  required  for  getting  on  with  them.  .  .  . 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  reply  to  this  letter  his  sister  writes  : — 

November  16,  1837. 
.  .  .  John,  Jemima,  and  I  have  been  talking  over  your  con- 
cerns this  morning.  First  we  agreed  that  it  would  be  well 
for  you  to  stay  some  time  in  Oxford,  then  Jemima  thought 
not  too  long,  unless  you  had  some  fixed  plan;  as  going  on  doubt- 
fully from  term  to  term  gives  people  unsettled  ways  when  they 
ought  to  be  beginning  the  business  of  life  seriously.  Nobody 
quite  understands  this  House,  which  I  suppose  is  not  a  real 
scheme  as  yet.  Of  course  you  will  be  obliged  to  wait  some  time 
before  you  are  ordained ;  as  Christmas  will  be  here  too  soon  for 
you  to  avail  yourself  of  that  time.  .  .  .  While  the  [Oriel]  exhi- 
bition lasts  it  seems  an  excellent  reason  for  staying  where  you 
are,  and  mamma  so  much  prefers  it.  She  thinks  it  does  you 
so  much  good;  and  you  know  her  old  ambition  that  you  should 
write,  which  she  fancies  more  likely  you  should  do  in  the 
literary  air  of  Oxford  than  elsewhere.  .  .  .  Miss  Keen  continues 
to  wish  for  fat  livings  for  you,  and  one  night  we  had  quite  an 
argument  as  to  one  being  desirable.  She  was  so  strenuous  in 
its  favour,  and  mamma  in  her  indifference,  that  one  might 
have  thought  your  real  fate  hung  on  the  decision  of  the  ques- 
tion.— Yours  affectionately,  A.  M. 

1838  was  distinguished  by  the  change  of  editorship  of  the 
British  Critic,  which  now  became  the  organ   of  the  party 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


7i 


of  which  Newman,  Pusey,  and  Keble  were  the  recognised  heads, 
Mr.  Newman  accepting  the  office  of  editor  after  some  commu- 
nication with  Messrs.  Eivington.  One  incidental  use  of  the 
review  was  to  furnish  a  field — a  sort  of  practice-gTOund — for 
the  younger  members  of  the  party. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  February  6,  1838. 
...  I  was  with  Newman  on  Sunday  evening,  talking  over  the 
British  Critic.  He  is  sanguine  about  contributors.  Newman 
only  took  it  after  others  refusing — first  Manning,  then  Maitland. 
The  latter  was  frightened  by  an  article  of  Pusey 's  on  the  Church 
Commission,  which  he  thought  went  too  far  for  him  in  his  pre- 
sent situation  of  librarian  to  the  Archbishop.  There  will  be  four 
stiffly  theological  articles  in  each  number — so  Newman  thinks 
to  arrange  it.   The  rest  will  be  miscellaneous  and  literary.  .  .  . 

The  article  in  the  Edinburgh  is,  Pusey  has  heard,  by  Meri- 
vale.  He  rather  likes  it,  on  the  whole  ;  that  is,  he  thinks  the 
spirit  good ;  but  he  will  answer  it,  and  enter  into  the  historical 
question  particularly.  The  article  in  the  Quarterly  is  Sewell's. 
I  should  hardly  have  guessed  it,  though  the  beginning  is  like 
him.  There  is  a  bit,  you  remember,  quoted  in  it  from  an  article 
in  the  British  and  Foreign  Review.  That  article  is  Price's. 
Arnold  has  been  here,  and  called  on  Pusey  yesterday — a  visit 
of  explanation,  and  kindly  meant.  They  knew  each  other  once 
very  well.  Arnold  is  on  the  Boaia  of  the  New  University  in 
London,  and  is  for  the  Greek  Testament  being  introduced  into 
the  examination.  He  will  not  unlikely  resign  if  it  is  carried 
against  him.  Pusey  talked  about  this  with  him,  it  being  a 
subject  on  which  they  could  agree. 

The  river  is  frozen  here  so  thick  that  they  are  going  to  roast 
a  sheep  on  it,  and  everybody  is  skating.  .  .  .  Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  Mozley. 

From  his  Brother,  T.  M. 

Cholderton,  February  20,  1838. 
My  dear  James, — I  think  since  the  days  of  my  attendance 
at  Pusey's  theological  meetings,  he  has  delivered  there  some 


72 


Letters  of  the 


lectures  on  the  inspiration  of  Scripture.  Can  you  send  me 
an  account  of  what  he  then  said,  or  does  say,  on  the  subject  ? 
It  is  to  be  the  subject  of  the  clerical  meeting  this  day  three 
weeks,  and  I  wish  to  have  something  distinct  to  say  upon  it. 
I  do  not  remember  at  this  moment  any  place  in  Newman's 
published  works  where  he  has  treated  it. 

Oxford,  February  21,  1838. 
My  dear  Tom, — Pusey  sends  you  down  his  papers  to  look 
over  for  yourself,  and  collect  what  you  can  from.  Though 
delivered  only  a  year  ago  they  were  written,  the  greater  part  of 
them,  several  years  since  ;  so  he  would  not  hold  himself  strictly 
answerable  for  every  word  or  phrase.  Also  the  main  subject  is 
the  Apocrypha,  and  the  sense  in  which  it  is  to  be  considered 
inspired.  And  Inspiration  generally  only  comes  in  as  intro- 
ductory to  this.  Newman  wishes  you  to  pursue  the  thing,  as 
some  views  are  wanted  upon  it ;  and  no  one  has  taken  it  up 
yet  in  a  regular  way,  or  any  way  at  all,  if  you  except  these 
very  papers.  .  .  .  Little  Philip  Pusey  is  very  ill  and  not  ex- 
pected to  recovei',  though  it  may  be  some  time  before  his  com- 
plaint is  decisive  one  way  or  the  other.  Pusey  himself  has 
been  up  to  London  just  now  to  be  a  witness  for  Mr.  Davenport, 
whose  case  you  may  have  seen  in  the  papers.  His  relatives 
choose  to  think  him  mad  because  he  has  given  away  £40,000 
for  charitable  and  religious  purposes.  Pusey  met  him  at  dinner 
in  the  Long :  and  went  to  testify  to  his  sanity,  as  far  as  he  could 
judge  at  the  time.  He  was  examined  an  hour  and  a  half  in  rather 
a  bullying  way,  and  had  seriously  to  give  his  opinion  that  the 
clergyman,  seeking  treasure  in  heaven,  who  gave  £5000  to  the 
London  churches,  was  not  mad.  By  the  way,  I  strongly  suspect 
this  clergyman  to  be  Pusey  himself.  If  so,  it  is  rather  good.  The 
question,  however,  was  put  by  the  counsel  for  his  side,  and 
perhaps  might  have  been  politic,  before  a  London  jury  of 
money-getting  persons  ;  though  to  moot  the  question  at  all,  of 
such  a  person,  would  rather  be  against  than  for  such  a  case 
as  Mr.  Davenport's.  Pusey,  as  is  natural  enough,  is  rather 
annoyed  from  thinking  that  he  might  have  done  better  in  the 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


73 


examination,  and  been  more  ready  than  he  was  ;  but  I  should 
think  he  did  very  well. 

Sam  Wilberforce  preached  yesterday  his  first  sermon  as 
Select  Preacher.  It  was  on  the  return  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and 
was  against  Pusey's  views  in  his  Baptism,  He  called  on  New- 
man afterwards,  and,  as  Newman  said,  wished  evidently  to  get 
from  him  what  he  thought  of  the  sermon,  but  N,  not  having 
heard  it,  naturally  evaded  such  hints,  which  S.  W.  would  of 
course  attribute  to  the  subject  of  the  sermon,  rather  than  to  so 
simple  a  reason  as  the  preceding  one.  I  suppose  there  must  be 
something  harsh  in  Pusey's  statements,  as  they  offend  people  so 
mightily — more  than  the  same  view  expressed  by  the  older 
divines — such  as  Jeremy  Taylor.  He  hits  people  hard,  and 
offers  no  apology  or  consolation  for  the  blow.  But  I  am 
speaking  off  the  book,  never  having  read  his  Baptism  in  a 
regular  way. 

Newman  has  been  writing  till  his  wrist  is  sore,  and  till  he 
almost  thinks  of  giving  himself  a  holiday,  though  he  does  not 
know  when.  Pusey  has  just  given  me  his  papers,  laughing  all 
the  while  at  their  disorder,  in  which  I  joined  him.  They  are 
written,  as  you  will  perceive,  on  odds  and  ends ;  the  slips  and 
backs  of  letters,  and  so  on.  I  would  caution  you  against 
trusting  too  much  to  the  numbering  1,  2,  3,  4,  which  might  be 
found  to  involve  only  the  particular  papers  which  bear  them, 
not  those  which  succeed,  though  you  are  at  liberty  to  take 
the  order  as  it  appears  till  you  have  proof  to  the  contrary.  You 
will  find  the  subject  also  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Theology 
of  Germany,  which  will  probably  give  you  as  much  to  your 
purpose  as  these  papers. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  4,  1838. 

.  .  .  Mrs.  Pusey  is  much  better  than  she  was,  and  has  come 
down-stairs  to  dinner  for  the  last  three  or  four  days.  The  only 
danger  is  that  she  will  overdo  it  and  take  liberties,  now  that 
she  is  no  longer  positively  confined  to  her  room.  Little  Philip 
goes  on  about  the  same.   They  think  of  going  to  some  watering- 


74 


Letters  of  the 


place  when  the  weather  is  fine  enough — perhaps  to  Dublin. 
Pusey  would  wish  to  see  the  Irish  clergy — those  of  them  who 
are  at  all  High  Church — to  establish  a  connection  with  them. 
But  at  present  I  believe  there  are  only  two  High  Churchmen 
in  Ireland,  Mr.  Todd,  and  Mr.  Gibbins,  the  editor  of  the  Index 
Expurgatorius,  so  that  there  would  be  little  to  do  in  that  way 
just  now.  Sam  "Wilberforce  has  been  up  preaching  a  University 
sermon.  It  was  aimed  very  perceptibly  at  Pusey's  view  of 
baptism.  This  is  uncommonly  silly  in  S.  W. ;  he  professes 
himself  of  our  party,  and  talks  of  us  and  we  and  so  on,  and  yet 
splits  from  us  in  public.  Pusey  perhaps  may  have  expressed 
himself  harshly  in  his  book,  and  one  would  have  nothing  to 
say  if  a  person  only  sent  his  objections  to  himself ;  but  it  is  a 
different  thing  to  tell  it  to  the  whole  world  to  please  people 
by  giving  them  the  opportunity  of  saying  "Ah!  they  are  splitting 
among  themselves." 

In  a  letter  of  a  subsequent  date,  April  7,  addressed  to 
James  Mozley  by  a  friend,  we  read : — 

Henry  Wilberforce,  by  the  way,  says  that  it  would  give  Sam 
great  pain  if  people  thought  he  had  been  preaching  at  Pusey 
lately — that  he  only  wished,  without  reference  to  existing 
persons,  to  express  certain  opinions  of  his  own,  the  contrary  to 
which  he  certainly  was  aware  that  Pusey  maintained,  but 
hoped  no  offence.  Pusey  does  not  conceal  his  disgust.  ...  I 
am  not  surprised,  by  the  way,  at  his  growing  fierce,  for  he  is 
preached  at  every  Sunday  regularly.  There  is  a  hit  at  him  in 
some  hole  or  corner  of  every  sermon  one  hears.  Mr.  Gresley 
this  morning  (or  I  would  rather  say  Sir  Nigel,  for  it  must  be  the 
same,  though  he  is  put  down  Mr.)  had  a  little  fling  at  the  5th 
of  November  sermon.  Last  Sunday  there  was  something  of  the 
same  kind  again.  The  Sunday  before  was  Sam  W. ;  and  the 
afternoon  preacher  also  fired  a  few  shots.  The  Sunday  before 
that  Hampden  gave  vent  a  little,  and  Mr.  Hill  of  Edmund  Hall 
was  almost  bursting  with  spleen  and  ill-humour  in  a  sermon  he 
preached  on  St.  Matthew's  Day.  Kogers  is  coming  up  again  to 
reside,  which  is  a  pleasant  thing  for  all  of  us,  and  for  Newman 
especially. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


75 


I  suppose  by  this  time  you  have  Fronde's  Remains}  It  makes 
some  people  melancholy  reading  them,  which  I  can  easily 
understand  in  those  who  did  not  know  him.  However,  the 
darker  side  shades  off  as  you  go  on,  and  the  whole  ends  in  a 
cheerful  character.  Eogers'  article  on  Froude's  Remains  {British 
Critic,  No.  XLV.,  Jan.  1838),  is  much  admired  and  is  certainly  a 
great  manifestation  of  rfdot.  The  Justification  is  almost  through 
the  press.  I  shall  be  taking  my  M.A.  in  a  few  days. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Brother,  T.  M. 

Oxford,  April  6,  1838. 
My  dear  Tom, —  .  .  .  Your  proposal  of  curacies  does  not  quite 
come  in  with  my  views  just  now.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  I  cannot 
make  up  my  mind  to  leave  Oxford  at  present.  It  is  too  much 
of  a  break  to  encounter  all  at  once,  and  I  happen  to  have  a 
good  reason  for  staying  on.  Newman  intends  putting  some 
plan  or  other  of  a  Society  into  execution  next  term,  and  I  am 
to  be  a  leading  member — though  whether  principal  or  vice- 
principal  I  cannot  tell  you.  But  if  there  are  only  two  of  us, 
which  seems  likely  at  present,  I  must  either  be  one  or  the  other. 

1  Froude's  Remains  were  so  much  discussed  at  the  time  that  it  may  be  well 
to  give  a  private  critique  as  representing  the  feeling  among  those  most 
disposed  to  take  the  book  for  granted : — 

"March  14,  1838. 

"...  I  have  not  yet  said  anything  of  Froude's  Remains,  though  we  have 
had  them  more  than  a  week,  and  I  have  nearly  read,  in  a  desultory  way,  all 
the  first  vol.  It  is  difficult  to  know  what  to  say  about  it.  Of  course  it  is 
very  interesting  and  very  clever,  but  I  must  say  I  felt  as  if  I  was  com- 
mitting an  impertinence  in  reading  his  private  journal — probably  the  most 
really  private  journal  that  ever  was  written.  For,  conceive  his  horror 
while  writing  some  of  the  confessions,  to  think  that  all  that  would  be 
printed  !  Then,  I  should  imagine,  there  are  many  so  little  aware  of  their  own 
weaknesses  that  they  may  look  down  upon  Froude  as  having  had  more  weak 
and  foolish  thoughts  than  others,  or  at  least  than  themselves  ;  for  people 
out  of  the  habit  of  self-examination  let  thoughts  of  pride,  vanity,  greediness, 
and  the  like  pass  through  their  minds,  and  rest  there  without  any  thought 
or  consciousness  of  the  matter— that  at  least  I  fancy.  I  am  afraid  lest 
justice  should  not  be  done  him,  that  people  should  not  feel  that  the  very 
fact  of  his  noting  them  down  proves  they  are  not  the  habit  of  his  mind 
but  something  strange,  new,  unfamiliar  that  he  starts  from.  The  letters 
are  striking  and  in  an  odd  style.  I  am  very  curious  to  know  what  kind  of 
sensation  his  views  will  make,  uttered  so  carelessly,  instead  of  in  Keble's, 
or  Pusey's,  or  Newman's  grand  style.  I  think  the  journal  is  melancholy, 
but  then  every  sincere  thing  of  the  kind  must  be  so." 


76 


Letters  of  the 


Johnson  of  Magdalen  Hall  will  join  ;  he  is  the  only  one  we  are 
certain  of.  But  after  the  Oriel  contest  is  over,  others  may  be 
willing.  I  know  Harriett  laughs  in  her  sleeve  at  all  these  schemes, 
but  you  must  know  I  am  grown  quite  a  grave  and  reverend 
senior,  and  have  a  right  to  take  a  sort  of  part  in  these  arrange- 
ments. I  am  an  M.A.,  as  you  know,  and  I  wear  spectacles  to 
a  considerable  extent,  and  this,  you  must  admit,  to  be  a 
powerful  combination,  and  to  make  me  altogether  a  much  more 
important  personage  than  I  was  before.  Newman's  Justification 
has  been  out  a  week.  You  must  read  Pusey's  article  on  the 
Church  Commission ;  it  is  a  complete  cxpos4,  and  gives  the  whole 
history  from  the  first. — Yours  affectionately,    J.  B.  Mozley. 

In  fact,  James's  decision  to  remain  in  Oxford  was  the  right 
one.  To  write  was  his  vocation,  and  the  neighbourhood  of 
libraries  a  necessity  to  him.    The  event  justifies  his  resolve. 

To  Mrs.  Thomas  Mozley. 

April  15,  1838. 
My  dear  Harriett, —  .  .  .  We  are  commencing  our  plan  of 
a  Society  in  real  earnest,  and  are  already  in  treaty  for  a  house 
opposite  Pusey's.  We  are  forming  arrangements  as  to  details, 
and  your  brother  is  to  order  furniture  forthwith  from  London ; 
very  plain  of  course — no  sofas  or  arm-chairs.  Your  brother 
wished  to  have  deal  in  the  bedrooms ;  but  I  put  my  veto  upon 
that  on  the  ground  of  its  being  ostentatious.  These  things  you 
are  not  to  talk  of,  you  understand,  though  I  give  you  perfect 
leave  to  laugh  at  them  internally  as  much  as  you  please.  I 
shall  be  glad  to  get  a  sight  of  you  again  at  Cholderton,  though 
I  had  rather  it  had  been  in  summer-time,  to  enjoy  the  luxury 
of  your  woods.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,        J.  B.  Mozley. 

The  next  letter  is  written  from  Hursley,  where  he  was  on  a 
visit  to  Mr.  B.  F.  Wilson,  Mr.  Keble's  curate. 

To  his  Sister. 

Hursley,  April  27,  1838. 
It  is  certainly  a  considerable  time  since  I  wrote  last,  but  I 
have  gone  on  putting  off,  thinking  I  might  have  something  to 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozlcy,  D.D. 


77 


say  after  coming  here.  I  came  last  Monday  and  shall  leave 
next,  after  which  I  go  for  a  week  to  Cholderton.  I  am  enjoying 
the  country  and  persons  here  uncommonly,  and  I  find  myself 
pretty  correct  in  my  expectations.  Keble  does  not  exhibit  the 
Christian  Year  very  prominently  in  his  outward  air  or  manner ; 
and  persons  who  came  with  the  idea  would  be  rather  floored 
and  perplexed,  and  not  know  what  to  make  of  him.  It  is 
neither  amiable,  nor  civil,  nor  courteous,  nor  engaging,  nor  any- 
thing of  the  kind,  but  he  leaves  you  pretty  much  to  yourself, 
and  speaks  just  when  he  likes,  and  what.  Some  persons  might 
be  put  out  by  all  this  :  somehow  or  other  I  cannot  help  liking 
it  myself,  and  being  amused  by  it.  In  fact,  there,  is  something 
in  the  real  and  natural  way  of  going  on,  which  pleases  one  for 
its  own  sake,  though  it  may  not  be  personally  attentive  to  one's- 
self  in  particular.  We  dined  with  him  on  Wednesday,  and  saw, 
of  course,  Mrs.  Keble.  There  was  Miss  Coxwell  and  two  ladies 
out  of  the  village.  Mrs.  Keble  is  decidedly  pretty  and  interesting- 
looking,  very  agreeable, — I  should  think  clever.  She  looks 
delicate  of  course,  but  she  has  come  to  daily  prayers  with  the 
exception  of  yesterday.  I  can  hardly  tell  you  what  conversa- 
tion was  about ;  Keble  lets  everything  take  its  course,  and  never 
sets  any  subject  going  of  a  continuous  kind — probably  would 
rather  interfere  with  it  if  any  one  else  did.  You  must  not 
suppose  by  all  this  that  I  do  not  like  K.'s  manner  or  am  dis- 
appointed. On  the  contrary,  it  really  takes  with  me ;  only 
if  I  were  a  friend  of  his  I  should  be  afraid  sometimes  of  others 
being  offended  by  it  and  not  understanding  him.  I  was  amused 
with  a  poetical  sketch  he  drew  of  the  society  to  be  met  in  the 
club-houses  in  town.  Wilson  was  saying  that  persons  frequented 
those  places  in  order  to  have  fashionable  or  distinguished 
characters  pointed  out  to  them  :  There  goes  such  a  one,  and  so 
on.  "  Yes,"  said  Keble,  "  there  goes  Lytton  Bulwer,  there  goes 
O'Connell,  there  goes  Jack  Ketch,  there  goes  Lucifer." 

We  are  going  to  dine  to-day  with  a  Mr.  Yonge  of  Otterbourne, 
a  chapelry  in  Hursley  parish ;  he  breakfasted  with  us  the  first 
morning,  and  seemed  a  kind  of  person  to  respect  very  much  ;  he 
is  a  great  friend  of  Keble's,  and  superintends  very  sedulously 
the  building  of  the  new  church  at  Otterbourne,  which  is  much 


78 


Letters  of  the 


to  his  credit,  especially  as  he  has  been  in  the  army.  We  called 
at  his  house  when  we  went  to  see  the  new  church,  and  saw 
Mrs.  Yonge  and  a  family  of  cousins  from  Devonshire.  He 
himself  was  at  the  church,  where  we  afterwards  found  him  all 
dusty  from  working  and  measuring  and  that  kind  of  work. 

Winchester  Cathedral  is  very  fine  inside,  especially  the  part 
where  the  shrines  of  Bishop  Waynflete,  Cardinal  Beaufort,  and 
William  of  Wykeham  are.  They  rise  up  in  a  kind  of  area  as  if 
they  were  clumps  of  trees.  .  .  . 

I  have  told  no  Oxford  news  yet ;  really  two  or  three  days 
in  the  country  is  such  a  change  that  it  makes  one  forget  all 
little  events  before.  One  or  two  things,  however,  I  do  remem- 
ber ;  Bridges  is  elected  at  Merton,  which  is  very  satisfactory ; 
he  resides,  in  consequence,  the  next  year.  Next,  I  must 
inform  you  that  Newman  has  taken  a  house,  to  be  formed 
into  a  reading  and  collating  establishment,  to  help  in  editing 
the  Fathers.  We  have  no  prospect  of  any  number  joining 
us  just  at  present.  Men  are  willing,  but  they  have  Fellow- 
ships in  prospect,  as  E.  And  P.,  who  stood  at  Oriel,  and 
passed  a  very  good  examination — the  best,  as  some  thought 
— has  a  Fellowship  at  University  in  prospect,  which  would  be 
interfered  with  by  joining  us,  for  we  shall  of  course  be  marked 
men.  It  would,  I  have  no  doubt,  seriously  injure  any  one's 
chance  at  any  College  now  being  connected  so  openly  with 
Newman  and  Pusey.  My  chances  being  over,  I  can  of  course 
afford  to  be  cool  and  courageous  in  the  matter.  The  house  has 
to  be  put  in  order  before  we  can  go  into  it.  I  say  we,  but  I 
really  don't  know  of  any  one  beside  myself  immediately  and 
positively  going  there.  ...  I  have  just  seen  H.  Wilberforce 
and  Eyder  (the  brother-in-law),  who  were  calling  upon  Keble. 
Keble  is  certainly  great  fun,  and  I  think  I  have  been  hard  upon 
him  in  the  beginning  of  my  letter. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

I  have  given  the  impression  of  Keble's  manner  as  it  stands,  in 
spite  of  the  last  sentence,  as  a  very  genuine,  true  piece  of 
description.  The  manner  is  a  poet's  manner  when  off  the  fervour 
of  inspiration.   Of  all  things  one  cannot  fancy  Keble  regulating 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


79 


his  social  habits  by  the  Christian  Year — by  what  might  be 
expected  of  him  as  its  author.  The  man  stands  before  us  as 
he  was,  his  humour  recognised,  which  in  his  "  Life  "  finds  little 
place.  As  for  the  second  subject  of  the  foregoing  letter — the 
Hall,  and  those  who  entered  into  the  scheme  and  took  up  their 
abode  there  being  "  marked  men  " — Mr.  Newman,  in  spite  of 
ascetic  rule  and  disregard  of  personal  advancement,  which  he  in- 
culcated on  others  and  practised  himself,  was  the  last  man  to  be 
indifferent  on  the  point  of  spoiling  other  men's  prospects.  To  be 
the  means  of  doing  so  evidently  dwelt  on  his  mind  and  harassed 
him.  On  the  occasion  of  James  Mozley's  standing  at  Magdalen 
in  1840,  he  threw  his  heart  into  the  election,  and  had  a  good 
share  in  the  success.  Where  the  election  was  a  near  run  thing, 
every  friend,  indeed,  who  brought  his  influence  to  bear,  felt 
he  had  brought  him  in ;  but  Mr.  Newman  had  the  feeling  of 
responsibility  which  made  it  a  personal  matter,  and  success  a 
personal  relief  as  well  as  gratification. 

On  Trinity  Sunday,  1838,  James  Mozley  was  ordained 
deacon.  Some  characteristic  traits  came  out  in  the  history  of 
the  preceding  week.  He  had  a  certain  coolness  and  freedom 
from  fidget  and  worry  that  often  amused  his  friends,  and  some- 
times went  too  far,  as  on  this  occasion.  Without  adequate 
grounds,  he  had  it  firmly  fixed  in  his  mind  that  the  deacon's 
examination  would  not  be  till  the  Wednesday  and  Thursday  in 
Whitsun  Week.  It  was  an  occasion  to  interest  Mr.  Newman. 
James  had  written  to  his  brother  Arthur,  then  an  under- 
graduate at  Oriel,  with  some  inquiries.  Arthur's  reply  had  been 
that  Mr.  Newman  did  not  know  the  time,  "  but  you  will  very 
likely  have  to  come  to  be  examined  very  soon."  Mr.  Newman 
would  not  be  able  to  understand  a  man's  relying  on  anything 
but  the  most  formal  information,  and  the  fact  that  James  did 
not  arrive  from  Cholderton,  where  he  was  reading  for  the  exa- 
mination, till  the  Tuesday  evening  after  the  deacon's  examina- 
tion was  over,  would  seriously  vex  him,  nor  would  he  think  it 


So 


Letters  of  the 


necessary  to  conceal  his  vexation.  James  had  written  home 
that,  God  willing,  he  was  to  be  ordained  on  Trinity  Sunday — 
"  perhaps  before  yon  get  this  letter."  To  his  brother  he  writes, 
after  announcing  the  event  of  his  ordination  : — 

Oxford,  June  13,  1838. 
My  deae  Tom, —  ...  All 's  well  that  ends  well ;  so  mis- 
takes do  not  signify  now,  but  on  coming  up  I  found  I  had  made 
a  considerable  floor  as  to  the  time  of  the  examination,  the  two 
days  for  the  deacons  having  been  Whit  Monday  and  Tuesday. 
Pusey  instantly  went  to  the  Archdeacon,  and  explained  matters 
to  him ;  and  the  result  was  that  I  went  in  on  Wednesday  and 
Thursday,  and  had  a  private  examination  with  the  priests. 
The  Archdeacon  was  very  good-natured,  and  made  no  difficulty 
whatever,  but  I  felt  annoyed,  especially  as  Newman  took  it 
into  his  head  to  feel  hurt  about  it,  not  to  say  considerably 
enraged.  However,  I  bave  made  up  the  affair  with  him,  and 
we  are  as  good  friends  as  ever,  but  he  looked  amazingly  black 
at  first,  I  can  assure  you,  epefivfj  vvktI  eot/cco?.  I  read  prayers 
for  him  at  St.  Mary's  on  Sunday  afternoon,  and  got  through 
with  one  bad  mistake  and  three  minor  ones.  .  .  .  They  say  I 
was  heard  pretty  well,  which  I  am  glad  of,  for  I  did  not  strain 
my  voice.  But  what  do  you  think  awaits  me  next  Sunday,  if 
I  get  a  sermon  finished  in  time  ?  Newman  positively  intends 
me  to  preach  for  him.  This  is  certainly  starting  rather  boldly, 
I  call  it.  However,  Eogers  seemed  to  think  I  had  as  well  do 
it,  and  I  thought  it  would  be  bike  mock  modesty  to  refuse ;  and 
after  all,  if  one  gives  a  plain,  straightforward  sermon,  there  is 
nothing  to  affect  one  much  one  way  or  another.  .  .  .  Sam 
Wilberforce  preached  at  St.  Mary's  on  Sunday  afternoon,  but  we 
were  not  out  of  the  Cathedral  in  time  to  hear  him.  People  say 
there  were  hits  in  it  at  Newman.  ...  I  do  not  take  Water 
Eaton,  unless  the  Bishop  wishes  it,  instead  of  which,  Newman 
has  a  plan  for  me  to  be  his  curate  at  St.  Mary's. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  Mozley. 

It  is  interesting,  after  the  story  of  missing  the  examination 
day,  to  read  the  following  lines : — 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


81 


"  To  James  Mozley,  Esq.,  Dr.  Pusey's. 
Charissime, — I  send  you  ray  surplice,  not  knowing  whether 
or  not  you  want  it.    It  is  that  in  which  I  was  ordained  deacon 
and  priest. — With  every  kind  thought,  ever  yours  affectionately, 

John  H.  Newman. 

In  /est.  SS.  Trin.,  1838." 

T.  M's.  letter  in  answer  foresees  for  James  the  character  of  a 
bungler — How  came  he  to  be  so  positive  it  was  Wednesday 
and  Thursday  ? — Whose  fault  was  it  ? — deriving  also  from 
James's  history  a  confirmation  of  his  view  of  a  "family  failing." 

"  From  what  I  hear,  S.  Wilberforce  does  not  confine  himself 
to  preaching  in  St.  Mary's.  He  goes  about  talking  against 
Newman  and  Pusey's  views.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  will 
publish,  and  so  give  N.  and  P.  an  opportunity  of  answering 
him.  He  taunts  his  brothers  with  being  ridden  by  Newman, 
and  boasts  of  his  own  liberty.  Free,  however,  as  he  is,  he  is 
by  no  means  happy — on  the  contrary,  thoroughly  discontented 
with  everything  about  him,  and  his  own  condition  and  circum- 
stances in  particular.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,    T.  Mozley." 

In  the  life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce  there  is  some  mention  of 
divergence  of  opinion  from  Newman  and  Pusey  at  this  date. 
In  a  letter  of  his  to  Mr.  Charles  Anderson,  August  18,  1838, 
there  is  a  curious  example  of  a  certain  blindness  as  to  the  pro- 
bable effect  of  attacks  on  the  persons  he  was  constantly  "  hit- 
ting "  in  public  and  private :  a  blindness  which  perhaps  was 
a  natural  concomitant  of  intense  self-reliance  and  sense  of 
power.  "As  to  my  agreeing  wholly  with  Newman,  etc.,  New- 
man has  just,  very  kindly  towards  me,  but,  as  I  think,  very 
unwisely,  declined  receiving  more  articles  from  me  in  the 
British  Critic,  because  my  sentiments  do  not  sufficiently  accord 
with  those  of  Dr.  Pusey  and  himself.  This  is  to  me  another 
mark  of  party  spirit,  which  I  greatly  lament  seeing  among 
such  great  and  good  men."1 

1  Life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce,  vol.  i.  p.  128. 
F 


82 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  July  6,  1838. 
Dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  You  must  know  I  preached  my  first 
sermon  at  St.  Mary's  last  Sunday,  and  had  a  much  larger 
congregation  than  I  should  have  had  the  Sunday  before — more 
dons,  and  more  strangers,  too ;  the  latter,  of  course,  having 
come  to  hear  Newman  (who  was  in  town).  However,  it  can- 
not he  helped.  I  wished  to  preach  a  sermon  in  St.  Mary's,  and 
that  was  a  laudable  wish,  and  therefore  other  things  must  give 
way.  I  believe  I  was  not  quite  loud  enough,  and  read  rather 
too  fast,  and  too  monotonously.  But  the  sermon  was  thought 
a  nice  one  by  my  friends,  though  the  Provost  took  the 
trouble  the  next  morning  to  inform  me  that  it  was  quite  a 
mistake  on  my  part — that  I  preached  in  Latin,  and  must  have 
been  quite  unintelligible  to  the  people  in  general.  However, 
this  is  only  the  Provost's  view,  to  which  he  is  welcome. 
People  must  have  been  uncommonly  stupid  who  could  not 
have  understood  me,  for  I  had  neither  hard  words  nor  hard 
ideas,  and  as  for  going  into  the  derivation  of  every  word  that 
one  uses,  whether  it  is  Latin  or  Greek,  one  would  be  half  a 
year  writing  at  that  rate.  I  should  not  think  the  Provost  ever 
once  thought  of  doing  it  himself.  I  take  the  sermon  at  Little- 
more  next  Sunday. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  MOZLEY. 

In  July  and  August  of  this  year  he  is  at  Cholderton  alone, 
while  T.  M.  and  his  wife  are  taking  their  holiday  and  visiting 
friends.  The  perfect  solitude,  of  which  he  had  now  experi- 
ence, encouraged  his  intellectual  bent,  though  far  from  being 
congenial  to  his  social  nature.  He  writes  to  his  sister,  then 
visiting  in  Dublin  : — 

Cholderton,  July  30,  1838. 
Thank  you  for  your  letter  in  the  first  place,  which  came  in 
most  opportunely  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  a  long  dull  morning. 
They  have  treated  me  too  disgracefully  at  Derby,  never  having 
written  yet.    I  go  on  here  pretty  much  as  you  might  expect, 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


83 


and  quietly  enough  ;  I  have  nothing  to  distress  me  throughout 
the  week,  or  move  in  any  way,  except  my  sermon  for  the  Sun- 
day. This  hangs  heavy  sometimes,  especially  as  I  am  idle  the 
first  part  of  the  week ;  and  have,  therefore,  this  cloud  always 
before  me.  I  intend  to  begin  reading  or  writing  something 
immediately,  if  it  is  only  to  give  me  something  else  to  think  of 
than  my  sermon.  After  all,  I  am  afraid  I  do  not  write  intelli- 
gibly for  the  people.  One  has  accustomed  one's-self  to  a  certain 
style  of  thought  and  mode  of  looking  at  things,  so  long  that 
one  really  cannot  get  out  of  it;  and  to  tyrite  a  good  plain 
homely  sermon  would  be  a  most  unnatural  exercise  for  me.  I 
confess  that  I  imitate  Newman  not  purposely,  but  I  cannot 
help  it.  I  am  not  ambitious  of  being  ranked  among  the  servile 
cattle  (servum  pecus  imitatorum),  but  one  must  follow  in  the 
track  which  has  been  laid  down  for  one ;  so  just  as  young 
Evangelicals  preach  evangelically,  though  they  hardly  know 
their  own  system  more  than  they  do  any  other,  so  I,  forsooth, 
preach  in  Newman's  way,  with  the  same  relation  to  him  that 
the  Oxford  Newdigates  have  to  Pope.  However,  I  mean  to 
try,  for  next  Sunday,  to  write  a  steady  practical  plain  affair,  that 
even  the  Provost  would  approve  of,  though  I  cannot  write  pure 
Saxon,  not  having  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  language.  .  .  . 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

The  close  of  the  Long  Vacation  he  spent  in  Derby,  where 
Mr.  Newman  also  paid  a  visit  to  his  sister:  he,  James,  and 
Arthur  returning  to  Oxford  together. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  October  18,  1838. 
My  dear  Anne, —  ...  I  have  been  busily  engaged  ever 
since  coming  up  with  making  arrangements  for  the  Hall — 
bustling  about,  calling  at  the  upholsterers,  giving  orders  for 
coal.  The  place  is  at  present  airing  and  warming.  It  will  look 
decent  enoiigh  when  everything  is  in  it.  There  are  quite  gay 
carpets  in  both  sitting-rooms ;  as  is  natural  in  fitting  up,  one 
forgets  the  commonest  things  at  first,  till  they  come  upon  one 
one  by  one.  I  shall  expect  to  find  numerous  deficiencies  after  all, 


84 


Letters  of  the 


when  I  come  to  the  actual  habitation  of  the  place,  and  just  at 
this  moment,  the  thought  of  coal  scuttles  has  flitted  by  me, 
and  I  have  booked  it  in  my  memoranda. 

I  have  not  called  on  Pusey,  as  he  does  not  see  callers  in  the 
present  state  of  his  family  [Mrs.  Pusey  in  a  most  precarious 
state] ;  but  I  met  him  in  the  street  yesterday,  and  had  a  little 
talk  with  him.  He  looked  very  pale  and  thin — quite  ghastly — 
Mrs.  Pusey  is  about  the  same  ;  but  little  Philip  is  expected  to 
recover.  He  is  at  Dr.  Wootton's  at  present.  Pusey's  sermons  at 
Weymouth  are  in  course  of  printing,  and  will  soon  be  out.  They 
are  very  magnificent  productions — so  complete  and  solid;  giving 
the  whole  history  of  our  missions  from  the  first,  and  verifying 
every  statement  by  references.  This  is  done  in  notes  ;  I  hardly 
know  whether  I  like  this  way  of  giving  information.  They 
are  at  the  bottom  of  the  page ;  and  so  interfere  with  the  text 
of  the  sermon.  Pusey  never  does  anything  by  halves.  I 
understand  he  has  made  a  great  sensation  at  Weymouth ;  his 
mere  appearance  of  itself  would  do  this,  especially  just  now — it 
is  immeasurably  apostolical.  Arthur  will  fill  the  turn-over. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

P.S.  [from  Arthur]. — James  has  left  me  to  fill  up,  but  I  am 
not  at  all  aware  that  one  thing  has  occurred  of  more  importance 
than  another.  We  had  a  fair  journey  in  point  of  warmth  ;  the 
moment  we  got  to  Northampton,  James  and  Newman  set  off 
Avalking.  About  six  miles  from  Northampton  the  coachman 
stopped  at  the  railroad  station,  on  pretence  of  waiting  for  some 
passengers  ;  but  I  believe  simply  for  the  amusement  of  seeing 
the  arrival  of  the  train.  James  and  Newman,  having  walked 
on,  missed  the  fun — there  must  have  been  passengers  enough  to 
fill  twenty  coaches ;  all  looking  exceedingly  comfortable,  with- 
out the  wretched  appearance  people  present  in  bundles  of  old 
clothes  on  stage  coaches.  All  the  ladies  looked  as  if  they  were 
dressed  for  a  fashionable  promenade. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  5,  1838. 
My  dear  Anne, — I  have  a  companion  at  last — S.    He  is  up 
to  take  Harrison's  Hebrew  Lectures  under  Pusey,  Harrison 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


85 


of  course  being  obliged  to  reside  in  town.  I  like  him  very 
much ;  he  has  unwearied  spirits,  and  will  talk  for  hours  on  the 
subject  of  old  liturgies,  breviaries,  and  rubrics.  He  knows  all 
the  technicalities  of  them,  and  has  them  at  his  fingers'  ends  or 
tongue's  end,  more  properly  speaking.  I  like  hearing  him  go 
on  upon  them,  from  the  amazing  zest  and  relish  which  he  has 
for  the  thing,  quite  amounting  to  epicureanism  ;  though,  I  con- 
fess, I  should  be  sorry  to  have  to  give  an  account  when  it  was 
over.  He  is  decidedly  clever,  besides  the  immense  information 
he  has  on  these  points,  and  has  a  good  idea  of  a  joke,  which 
somehow  or  another  he  manages  to  introduce,  even  into  his 
liturgical  conversation ;  though  you  would  not  think  the  two 
very  compatible.  What  do  you  think  of  my  article  having 
been  alluded  to  in  a  sort  of  way  from  the  University  pulpit  ? 
It  is  absurd  enough — but  so  it  is — only  very  slightly,  but 
enough  to  recognise  the  allusion.  Mr.  Gresley  (the  author  of  a 
book  on  preaching — Ecclcsiastes  Anglicanus),  stuck  up  for  the 
phrase  "  ready-made  apparatus,"  and  thought  it  had  been  too 
hardly  handled.1  We  ought  to  unite,  he  said,  the  lofty  and  the 
practical  parts  of  our  system.  I  quite  agree  with  him ;  but 
Dr.  Chalmers  separated  them,  and  that  in  the  broadest  and 
coarsest  way.  Eogers,  who  was  behind  me,  declared  he  just  saw 
the  tips  of  ears  turning  red.  I  confess  to  a  temporary  suffu- 
sion ;  but  it  was  only  for  a  moment.  There  were  not  half  a 
dozen  persons  in  church  who  knew  either  the  article  itself  or 
that  I  had  written  it ;  so  I  might  have  spared  myself  even  that 
piece  of  consciousness.  Newman  heard  from  H.  the  other  day 
— finding  fault  with  Keble's  article,  that  it  was  strained ; 
how  he  could  really  think  so,  I  cannot  imagine,  Keble's  theory 
seems  to  fit  Scott  [Sir  Walter  Scott]  so  perfectly.  Every  one 
remarks  it  as  a  case  of  extraordinary  adaptation. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  Mozley. 

As  a  sequel  to  the  portrait  in  the  last  letter,  we  give  a  pas- 
sage from  the  home  letter  that  follows  in  order  : — 

"  I  am  obliged  to  change  my  tone  a  little  about  S.,  who, 

1  See  British  Critic,  Talgrave'a  Truths  and  Fictions  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
1838,  vol.  xxiv.  p.  393. 


86 


Letters  of  the 


though  a  very  good  fellow,  is  a  decided  bore  as  a  talker ;  you 
know  a  week's  additional  experience  is  important  on  such  a 
point.  He  talks  so  continuously,  copiously,  and  pertinaciously 
on  his  own  subjects  wherever  he  is,  that  it  is  really  no  use 
asking  one's  friends  to  come  to  see  one  ;  if  they  come  the  result 
invariably  is  that  they  have  come  to  hear  S.,  not  to  see  me,  or 
each  other.  It  is  perfectly  vain  and  useless  any  one  trying  to 
give  adequate  expression  to  any  idea  in  S.'s  presence — he  is 
overwhelmed  immediately.  In  spite  of  this,  I  bike  S.  very 
much  in  many  points ;  but  he  wants  setting  down- — I  have 
the  will,  but  not  the  power." 

Again,  criticising  his  style  of  polemical  writing  : — 

"  S.,  you  must  know,  is  a  most  curious  mixture  of  theology 
and  erudition,  with  an  immense  taste  for  scurrility  and  the 
newspaper  handbill  style  of  literature ;  but,  however,  he  is  a 
capital  person  in  his  way — and  all  have  their  own  way  of  doing 
things." 

To  his  Sister. 

December  6,  1838. 
.  .  .  Tom's  pamphlet,  of  course,  I  have  read,  and  think  it 
extremely  clever  and  amusing ;  there  cannot  be  two  opinions 
about  that.  Newman  thinks  the  same,  and  is  rather  annoyed 
on  that  account ;  as  he  would  like  to  have  had  it  in  the  British 
Critic  instead.1  I  think  it  would  have  been  better  too,  perhaps  ; 
but  persons  have  their  own  way  of  doing  things.  All  here  to 
whom  I  have  shown  the  pamphlet  are  excessively  taken  with  it. 
I  was  treated  as  one  of  the  public.  The  first  intimation  at  least 
I  had  of  the  thing,  was  receiving  it  from  the  bookseller,  "  with 
the  author's  compbments."  .  .  .  However,  this  does  not  interfere 
with  the  cleverness  of  the  pamphlet.  It  is  rather  too  clever  if 
anything,  that  it  has  too  much  point  in  it  at  every  turn.  The 
plums  are  rather  too  thick ;  but  this,  I  suppose,  is  unavoidable 

1  "A  clergyman  of  South  Wilts  has  written  anonymously  'A  Dissection 
of  the  Queries'  of  Lord  John  Russell  on  the  amount  of  Religious  Instruction 
and  Education  (Rivingtons),  with  so  much  cutting  force  and  such  felicity 
of  expression,  that  it  is  a  thousand  pities  he  has  not  operated  on  a  more 
public  stage." — Notice  in  British  Critic,  vol.  xxv.  p.  255,  January  1839. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


87 


with  good  writing,  when  the  writer  is  fresh  at  his  trade.  He 
soon  learns  a  little  insipidity,  and  is  more  at  his  ease  and  less 
anxious  about  the  opinion  of  the  reader  at  every  turn.  .  .  . 
Newman's  new  volume  {Sermons,  vol.  iv.),  that  he  has  sent,  he 
intends  to  present  to  those  who  are  employed  on  the  com- 
munion-cloth. My  mother  is  to  be  the  trustee  of  the  gift,  so 
now  your  perplexity  is  settled. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  MOZLEY. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  January  16,  1839. 
.  .  .  Have  you  seen  Gladstone's  book  ?  [The  State  in  its  Rela- 
tions with  the  ChurcK],  John  should  order  it,  if  he  can,  into  the 
library.  It  is  a  very  noble  book,  I  believe,  and  has  damaged,  if 
not  destroyed,  his  prospects  with  the  Conservatives.  People  are 
saying  now,  "  Poor  fellow,"  and  so  on.  Hope  of  Merton  told 
Newman  this,  as  what  he  heard  in  town,  and  also  said  persons 
out  of  the  political  world  could  not  understand  the  sacrifice 
Gladstone  had  made. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

February  11,  1839. 
.  .  .  The  Chevalier  Bunsen  has  been  here,  staying  with 
Acland  at  All  Souls.  Of  course  he  has  been  made  a  lion,  and 
dined  and  breakfasted  at  many  places ;  among  the  rest,  in  our 
common  room  with  Newman,  where  I  saw  him.  He  is  a  short, 
corpulent  man,  with  a  bright  red  face  and  sharp  eyes,  decidedly 
clever-looking,  but  you  would  not  think  him  exactly  a  philoso- 
pher. He  is  a  prodigious  talker — literally  talks  unceasingly, 
and  has  a  most  amusing  way  of  silencing  others  by  lifting 
up  his  finger.  If  any  one  seems  disposed  to  interrupt  him,  he 
says,  "  Oh,  I 'm  going  to  that ;  I  '11  tell  you  that  presently,"  and 
goes  on  swimmingly  as  before.  However,  he  is  really  amusing, 
and  therefore  no  one  complains.  He  does  give  one  positive 
gratification.  The  way  in  which  he  tells  stories  and  describes 
persons  is  capital.  He  was  a  great  patron  of  Bieni,  at  Rome, 
the  Pope's  composer,  and  told  us  very  interesting  things  about 


88 


Letters  of  the 


him  :  how  that  he  was  a  priest,  and  went  about  from  six  in  the 
morning  to  twelve,  hearing  the  prisoners'  confessions  in  the 
different  jails ;  and  then  set  to  at  music.  He  (Bieni)  was  the 
great  preserver  of  Palestrina's  works  and  the  old  music,  when  the 
French  came  to  Eome.  The  latter  sold  them  out  of  the  libraries — 
as  they  did  numberless  other  papers — to  the  confectioners,  and 
Bieni  collected  them  by  hook  and  by  crook  afterwards,  with  his 
own  money,  to  the  number  of  thirty-six  folio  volumes,  all  made 
up  of  bits  and  scraps,  and  restored  again.  Bunsen  is  a  hard 
worker,  and  that  morning  he  breakfasted  with  us  had  got 
up  two  hours  before,  and  been  reading  Pusey's  letter  on  the 
Sacrifice,  which  subject  he  discoursed  upon  to  Newman.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Gleig,  the  author  of  The  Subaltern,  preached  at  St.  Mary's 
yesterday,  a  flowing,  well-written  sermon,  with  nothing  in  it. 
S.  Wilberforce  preached  too,  I  thought  a  better  sermon  than 
ever  I  had  heard  from  him,  with  high  ideas  in  it.  He  is  sadly 
pompous,  though,  both  in  style  and  delivery.  Write  before 
long,  though  I  have  no  right  to  insist  on  a  very  speedy  answer. 
When  does  my  father  go  to  Cholderton  ?  He  might  as  well 
rest  here  on  his  way  when  he  does  go. — Yours  affectionately, 

James  Mozley. 

February  23,  1839. 
We  had  a  grand  diocesan  education  meeting  here  on  Thurs- 
day, when  the  bishop  presided.  It  was  for  the  new  schools 
that  are  to  be  raised  throughout  the  country  for  the  middling 
class  of  people — that  is,  just  above  the  labouring  class — in  con- 
nection with  the  Church.  There  is  a  society  in  town  for  the 
purpose,  of  which  Wood  and  Acland,  among  others,  are  the 
delegates,  and  have  been  going  about  the  country  explaining 
the  object  of  it.  .  .  .  Gladstone's  book  has  come  to  a  third 
edition,  which  is  a  great  deal  in  so  short  a  time. 

To  Mrs.  Thomas  Mozley. 

March  6,  1839. 

Dear  Harriett, —  .  .  .  They  say  the  greater  sinner  the 
greater  saint ;  so  Tom  will  beat  all  of  us  together  in  working 
when  once  he  buckles  to.    We  certainly  are  idle  in  Oxford  ;  there 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


89 


is  no  denying  it ;  at  least  I  am,  and  I  will  answer  for  several  of 
my  friends.  I  think  the  advantages  of  Oxford  lie  in  a  moral 
rather  than  in  an  intellectual  direction.  We  are  idle  and 
innocent,  as  Shakespeare  says.1  Either  this  is  the  account  of 
it,  or  else  it  is  that  J.  H.  N.  works  for  all  of  us  put  together. 
Here  have  I  hardly  done  anything  at  all  for  my  Article  in  the 
next  British  Critic,  though  J.  H.  N.  is  particularly  anxious 
about  it.  How  am  I  ever  to  string  together,  in  anything  like 
method,  all  the  bits  and  scraps  and  snips  and  snails,  in  the 
shape  of  reports,  messages,  paragraphs,  and  the  like,  that  have 
come  out  on  the  subject  of  the  Tracts  ?  I  have  hardly  an  idea. 
.  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  April  3,  1839. 
.  .  .  The  American  Bishop  [Hopkins,  Bishop  of  Vermont] 2 
made  his  appearance  yesterday  just  before  dinner.     I  was 

1  About  this  time  the  idea  seems  to  have  occurred  to  J.  B.  M.  of  keeping 
some  record  of  conversations,  probably  of  no  common  interest,  in  which 
he  was  a  sharer.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  gone  much  further  than  the 
thought,  but  one  slight  record  is  found  among  his  papers,  leaving  no  doubt 
of  the  chief  speaker,  if  there  were  no  initial  letter.  The  reader  of  New- 
man's Sermons  will  recall  that  on  The  Invisible  World,  where  the  brute  crea- 
tion is  brought  forward  as  an  argument.  "  All  is  mystery  about  them.  Is 
it  not  plain  to  our  senses  that  there  is  a  world  inferior  to  us  in  the  scale  of 
beings  with  which  we  are  connected,  without  understanding  what  it  is  ?"  etc. 
The  fragment  is  headed  "Wild  Beasts."  "  N. — White  jiolar  bear:  what 
a  dreadful  specimen  of  restlessness  and  impatience  in  an  animal  ! — quite 
miserable.  Wild  beasts  seem  a  kind  of  fragment  of  some  great  world  that 
we  do  not  see — such  extraordinary  developments  they  are,  morally  speaking. 
P. — To  see  a  lion  suffering  under  the  treatment  of  a  common  showman,  the 
lowest  fellow  possible — a  lion,  a  creature  that  has  a  history  of  its  own,  as 
man  has,  and  done  great  actions  that  are  talked  of — is  a  degrading  spectacle. 
N. — 1  have  not  any  great  sympathies  with  those  animals  ;  I  do  not  take 
that  view  of  them.  They  are  sulky,  unaccountable  creatures."  ..."  The 
Theatre."  "  N. — I  think  the  notion  of  turning  plays  to  moral  purposes  a  mere 
theory.  They  must  be  things  to  please  the  multitude.  I  believe  plays  do 
not  go  down  without  a  good  deal  of  swearing  in  them.  And  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  got  over  in  the  acting  itself  ;  the  putting  on  a  certain  character, 
dressing  and  showing-off  before  an  audience.  P. — Yes  ;  but  is  not  poetry 
dvdfMvrjais,  according  to  Plato  ?  N. — Are  we  bound  to  take  Plato  ? — however, 
a  poet  works  himself  up  in  his  own  room  by  himself,  which  is  a  different 
thing.  P. — Ah,  but  he  publishes.  N. — Yes,  afterwards.  After  he  has 
written,  but  the  two  acts  are  different." 

2  See  B.  C ,  p.  281  :  his  work  reprinted  in  London,  1839. 


90 


Letters  of  the 


engaged,  which  was  a  nuisance.  .  .  .  However,  we  left  soon  and 
went  to  common  room,  where  his  Lordship  was  in  great  force, 
talking  away  to  a  circle  about  him  on  all  sorts  of  ecclesiastical 
subjects.  He  is  really  a  learned  person,  and  very  sharp  too, 
ready  in  bringing  out  what  he  knows  and  arguing  upon  it.  He 
was  in  the  law  for  ten  years  before  going  into  the  Church,  which 
may  partly  account  for  this.  This  morning  he  and  Newman 
have  been  holding  a  long  confab,  which  has  increased  New- 
man's idea  of  him.  You  must  know,  however,  that  to  us  who 
are  accustomed  to  the  baronial  Hildebrandish  bishops,  or 
rather  the  descendants  of  them  (unworthy  though  they  may 
be),  he  is  not  a  person  one  would  take  all  at  once  for  a  bishop, 
having  a  slight  approximation  to  the  Methodist  dignitary 
about  him — say  the  President  of  the  Conference  or  some  such 
official.  Not  that  he  is  anything  of  a  Methodist  in  opinion. 
He  has  worked  himself  to  quite  the  contrary — that  is,  to  High 
Church  views — in  an  extraordinary  way,  entirely  by  his  own 
reading,  which  has  been  considerable,  in  the  Fathers ;  and  he  is 
quite  alive  to  what  the  wants  of  the  Church  are  at  present, 
and  would  introduce  important  changes  into  his  own  country, 
or  '  our  country,'  as  the  American  expression  is.  ...  I  must 
not  forget  the  British  Critic  amongst  all  these  things,  or  omit 
telling  the  admiration  I  feel  for  Tom's  Church  and  King,  which 
I  think  beautiful,  both  in  idea  and  in  the  way  it  is  brought  out. 
.  .  .  C.  Marriott  is  as  serene  and  grave  as  ever  amidst  all  ex- 
citement. ...  I  forgot  to  say  that  Johnson  of  Magdalen  Hall  is 
standing  for  the  place  of  Eadcliffe  Observer,  vacant  by  Eigaud's 
death.  It  has  hitherto  been  held  with  the  Professorship,  but 
need  not  be,  the  two  being  upon  distinct  foundations.  Johnson 
has  not  even  taken  his  degree  yet,  but  any  one  can  stand  for 
the  Observership,  whereas  it  must  be  an  M.A.  for  the  other. 
The  electors  are  the  Eadcliffe  Trustees,  who  are  quite  indepen- 
dent of  the  University.  Lord  Sidmouth,  Mr.  Estcourt,  Sir 
Eobert  Peel,  Mr.  Cartwright,  M.P.  for  Northampton,  are  of  the 
body.  Johnson  will  have  capital  claims  to  show,  having 
erected  an  observatory  himself  at  the  Cape,  and  superintended 
it  as  the  temporary  astronomer  for  three  years,  besides  his 
book. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


9i 


The  next  letter  tells  of  the  election.  From  that  time  Mr. 
Johnson  was  a  person  of  mark  in  Oxford.1  It  was  at  his  house 
(as  the  Apologia  tells  us),  that  Mr.  Newman  passed  his  last 
evening  in  Oxford — "I  slept  on  Sunday  night  at  my  dear 
friend  Mr.  Johnson's,  at  the  Observatory," — before  leaving 
Oxford  for  good.  I  myself,  with  only  a  slight  acquaintance, 
can  well  understand  the  feeling  entertained  for  Mr.  Johnson  by 
intimate  friends.  I  look  back  to  1849,  when,  sitting  by  him 
at  dinner,  he  told  me  of  having  met  in  London,  Newman  and 
his  friends,  lately  returned  from  Eome.  Tears  came  to  his 
eyes  as  he  recalled  the  scene.  One  perceived  that  natural 
feeling  had  been  allowed  its  full  play  unchecked  by  insular 
shyness. 

In  a  few  lines  to  his  brother  Tom,  J.  B.  M.  alludes  to  Mrs.  T. 
Mozley's  first  essay  in  authorship.  I  may  say  here,  that  she 
inaugurated  in  the  Fairy  Bower  the  class  of  story  or  novel 
for  young  people  of  the  well-trained  thoughtful  order  which 
has  been  a  characteristic  of  our  day. 

May  23,  1839. 

...  I  heard  of  the  new  character  in  which  she  [Harriett] 
is  going  to  appear  before  the  world  from  J.  H.  N.  before 
Anne's  letter,  which  revealed  it  to  me  as  a  profound  secret ; 
giving  also,  at  the  same  time,  a  very  fine  account  of  the  im- 
pression the  work  itself  had  caused  at  home ;  which  shows  that 
they  speak  more  good  of  it  behind  H.'s  back  than  they  do  to 
her  face.  What  surprises  me  chiefly  at  present,  which  is  the 
only  point  I  know  about  it,  is  the  expedition  of  the  performance. 
.  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

June  27,  1839. 

.  .  .  Oxford  is  fairly  launched  in  this  said  Long  now ;  and 
the  caps  and  gowns  have  disappeared.    Oriel  is  epiite  deserted, 

1  The  reader  is  referred  to  the  chapter  devoted  to  him  in  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Mozley's  lieminiscences. 


92 


Letters  of  the 


all  being  gone  except  Newman  and  myself.  The  Commemora- 
tion, of  which,  by  the  way,  I  hardly  have  told  you  anything, 
went  off  very  well.  Wordsworth  was  enthusiastically  received 
in  the  Theatre,  and  was,  I  heard  afterwards,  much  affected  by 
it,  though  he  did  not  shoio  the  slightest  feeling  on  the  occasion. 
I  was  glad  to  have  seen  him,  for  really  these  great  men  are 
dying  off  so  fast,  that  it  is  now  or  never  with  them.  I  sat 
opposite  to  him  on  the  morning  after,  at  a  grand  breakfast 
party  given  by  Frank  Faber  of  Magdalen,  to  which  he  was 
so  kind  as  to  ask  me — a  very  good-natured  thing  of  him,  as 
I  hardly  knew  him.  Keble  and  all  his  party  were  there : 
Newman  also ;  so  it  was  really  a  galaxy  that  one  has  not  often 
the  opportunity  of  enjoying.  Wordsworth  did  not  talk  much 
for  the  public  ear :  indeed  one  would  not  have  liked  it  if  he 
had,  though  it  would  have  gratified  one's  curiosity  more.  Once 
he  thanked  Keble  across  the  table  for  a  compliment  Keble  had 
paid  him  in  his  Oration  in  the  Theatre.  I  thought  his  style  of 
acknowledgment  rather  more  stiff  than  it  need  be,  in  fact  a 
little  inclined  to  pomposity.  He  is  in  private,  I  believe,  an 
immense  talker  ;  and  seemed  to  be  talking  a  good  deal  during 
the  breakfast,  though  it  was  only  to  his  next  neighbour,  and  in 
a  low  voice.  Palmer's  father-in-law,  Captain  Beaufort,  had  a 
D.C.L. ;  as  also  the  Chevalier  Bunsen.  Arnold  came  from 
Eugby  to  see  Wordsworth,  whom  he  met  at  the  Provost's  to 
lunch,  after  the  Theatre.  Newman  also  gave  a  spread  in 
the  Common  Boom  to  the  Kebles.  The  party  consisted  of 
Mrs.  Keble  and  Mrs.  Tom  Keble,  the  little  girl  and  boy,  and 
Miss  Coxwell,  a  cousin.  Mr.  Bowyer,  the  author  of  the 
article  on  the  Discipline  Bill  in  the  British  Critic, — for  which 
article,  by  the  way,  he  got  his  degree,  having  been  recom- 
mended by  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  in  consequence  of  it, — was 
there.  He  is  quite  young,  looks  ingenuous  and  pleasing. 
I  liked  his  looks.  A  degree  is  just  the  thing  to  have  got 
for  him,  as,  owing  to  his  father's  extravagance,  he  has  not 
been  at  the  University.  .  .  . — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  MOZLEY. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


93 


J.  B.  M.  to  T.  M. 

July  10,  1839. 

My  dear  Tom, — I  have  been  intending  to  write  to  you  these 
several  days  past  to  congratulate  you  on  your  articles  [in  the 
B.  C]  which  I  think  are  very  successful,  and  out  and  out  the 
best  things  in  the  review.  Of  course  the  Temperance  one  was 
the  first  to  be  read ;  and  I  should  say  that  perhaps  it  is  my 
favourite  of  the  two,  though  it  is  absurd  to  compare  when  the 
subjects  are  so  different.  One  naturally  looks  into  a  review  for 
amusement  first,  and  then  edification  in  due  time,  and  so 
is  inclined  to  like  best  what  satisfies  the  first  feeling  most 
easily.  I  fully  expect  to  see  it  quoted  in  the  papers  before 
long.  As  I  have  begun  to  criticise,  I  will  just  say  that  I  think 
the  first  part  of  the  Evidences  the  most  successful.  The 
middle  inclines  to  being  too  deep  for  a  review,  according  to 
people's  general  way  of  reading.  I  entirely  agree  with  it  of 
course ;  and  particularly  with  that  part  where  you  say  you 
write  at  the  risk  of  being  misunderstood. 

This  is  not  very  fine  weather  for  John  and  Jemima ;  here 
at  least  we  have  April  over  again.  Mrs.  Small  [mother  of  the 
Littlemore  schoolmistress]  is  living  in  the  expectation  of  see- 
ing Jemima  and  little  Herbert.  Every  time  I  go  to  Littlemore 
she  asks  me  about  their  coming ;  and  talks  of  it  as  the  only 
important  event  that  is  to  happen  to  her  in  this  world. 

Do  you  know  of  Pusey's  having  been  thrown  off  the  coach 
with  little  Philip,  going  from  Brighton  ?  There  is  a  sharp  turn 
of  the  road  opposite  Arundel  Castle,  and  he  was  lifting  up 
Philip  to  see  the  place,  when  the  jerk  caused  by  turning  sent 
them  both  off,  he  having  no  hold  at  the  time.  They  are  not 
seriously  hurt,  though  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  the  effects 
will  be  in  a  person  so  weak  as  Pusey  is  just  now.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

J.  B.  M.  to  H.  E.  M. 

July  25,  1830. 

My  dear  Harriett, — I  write  to  ask  whether  you  will  take 
me  in  if  I  go  to  see  you  for  a  few  days.  We  are  a  party  of  us 
here  going  down  to  the  consecration  of  Keble's  church  at  Otter- 


94 


Letters  of  the 


bourne.  I  had  not  thought  of  going  myself ;  only,  others  going, 
one  is  drawn  in  by  a  kind  of  sympathy.  Perhaps  one  or  two 
of  you  may  be  there.  Why  not  ?  I  should  think  you  could 
manage  it  somehow  or  other.  That  pony  is  a  wonderful  animal, 
and  will  do  anything  if  his  strength  is  brought  out.  J.  H.  K 
is  of  the  party  to  Hursley,  but  I  am  afraid  he  has  no  intention 
of  paying  you  a  visit ;  indeed  we  go  post  in  order  to  save  time. 
He  comes  back  the  next  day  to  his  children,  whom  he  is  pre- 
paring for  confirmation ;  and  Long  Vacation  is  valuable,  he 
says,  for  reading;  he  can  spare  less  of  it  than  any  other 
time.  Johnson  also  is  going.  He  has  been  here  for  some  time 
superintending  his  house  fitting  up.  The  rest  are  Morris, 
Bloxam.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  24,  1839. 

...  I  am  losing  my  last  remaining  companion  in  the  House, 
Barker,  who  is  going  to  be  T.  Keble's  curate,  and  will  be  there 
till  his  ordination,  in  order  to  get  a  knowledge  of  the  place  be- 
fore he  begins.  There  is  no  one  at  hand  just  now  that  one  can 
see  to  supply  the  places  of  all  these  desertions,  so  I  feel  myself 
to  be  inhabiting  a  whole  house  all  for  nothing,  which  is  living 
in  state  indeed,  but  is  not  a  very  comfortable  idea.  The  Lincoln 
Fellows  are  beginning  to  find  out  that  they  have  done  a  precipi- 
tate thing,  and  say  that  they  had  no  idea  of  electing  a  theolo- 
gian, for  which  assurance  one  can  give  them  ample  credit,  as 
perhaps  it  never  entered  into  any  of  their  heads  that  Colleges 
were  founded  at  all  for  theological  purposes. 

Pusey  preached  last  Sunday,  the  first  time  in  Oxford  since 
his  wife's  death.1  When  he  came  to  the  last  sentence  of  the 
prayer  before  the  sermon,  in  which  the  dead  are  mentioned,  he 
came  to  a  complete  stand-still,  and  I  thought  would  never  have 
gone  on.  He  has  very  little  mastery  over  his  feelings.  In  the 
course  of  the  sermon  there  was  a  piece  of  friendly  advice  given 
to  the  Heads  of  Houses,  for  which  they  would  not  be  much 
obliged  to  him.    He  had  been  talking  of  increase  of  luxury 

1  Mrs.  Pusey  died  May  26,  1839. 


Rev.  7.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


95 


amongst  the  under-graduates,  of  late  years,  from  which  he  took 
occasion  to  say  that  those  in  station  might  do  well  to  live  more 
simply  than  they  did.  He  dropped  his  voice  at  this  part, 
which  had  the  effect  of  course  of  giving  increased  solemnity 
to  the  admonition;  for  there  was  breathless  silence  in  the 
church  at  the  time.  Pusey  however  meant  the  under-graduates 
not  to  hear,  as  he  told  Newman  with  the  utmost  simplicity 
after.  It  was  to  have  been  a  sort  of  an  aside  from  the  preacher 
in  the  pulpit  to  the  Vice-Chancellor  over  the  way.  The  Master 
of  Balliol  was  seen  to  march  out  of  church  afterwards  with 
every  air  of  offended  dignity.  The  best  of  it  was,  the  main 
body  of  the  sermon  had  been  quite  in  the  general,  on  the 
vanity  of  human  life,  etc. — quite  proper  and  unobjectionable. 
The  heads  were  looking  serene  and  composed,  when,  all  on  a 
sudden  comes  this  highly  practical  turn  to  the  subject. 

So  S.  Wilberforce  is  the  new  Archdeacon  of  Surrey.  I 
suppose  his  late  speeches  in  Devonshire  have  done  something 
for  him.  The  Bishop  could  hardly  keep  him  out  of  office  after 
he  had  done  himself  so  much  credit.  .  .  . 

Bogers  and  Donkin  have  set  up  a  few  small  private  concerts, 
to  be  held  in  succession,  at  different  common-rooms.  Elvey 
and  two  or  three  other  professional  men  will  attend,  and  the 
rest  are  amateurs.  Heathcote  of  New  College,  the  splendid 
bass  voice,  is  one.  I  am  admitted  of  course  only  as  a  listener. 
The  affair  promises  well.  Donkin  will  take  care  only  to  have 
good  music.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

J.  B.  M.  to  his  Sister,  M.  M. 

Oxford,  January  10,  1840. 
.  .  .  We  have  had  another  Boman  Catholic  visitor  here  now, 
in  the  person  of  Mr.  Spencer,  Lord  Spencer's  brother.  He  is 
Palmer  of  Magdalen's  guest,  and  is  staying  two  or  three  days. 
Newman  was  asked  to  meet  him,  but  declined ;  so  he  called  on 
Newman  and  had  a  long  talk.1   Newman  liked  him,  but  thought 

1  I  had  an  unspeakable  aversion  to  the  policy  and  acts  of  Mr.  O'Connell 
because,  as  I  thought,  he  associated  himself  with  men  of  all  religions  and  no 
religion,  against  the  Anglican  Church,  and  advanced  Catholicism  by  vio- 
lence and  intrigue.    When,  then,  I  found  him  taken  up  by  the  English 


96 


Letters  of  the 


him  too  smooth  and  staid.  He  is  much  more  tolerant  than  most 
of  his  party,  and  disapproves  of  the  Irish  Eoman  Catholics,  but 
hopes  much  of  the  English  ones.  He  walked  to  Littlemore 
yesterday.  I  do  not  know  Palmer,  so  probably  shall  not  see 
him,  which  I  am  sorry  for. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

The  year  1840  is  distinguished  as  introducing  the  Penny 
Post.  It  is  true  in  the  case  before  us  that,  as  the  writer  says, 
the  fact  of  writing  a  letter  is  all  the  same  so  far  as  the 
process  is  concerned,  whether  it  costs  a  penny  or  eightpence. 
The  change  made  no  difference  in  his  style,  but  perhaps  it  may 
be  doubted  if  the  habit  of  writing  full  home  letters  would 
have  been  formed  under  such  altered  conditions. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  January  22, 1840. 
I  have  not  taken  so  much  advantage  of  the  penny  postage 
as  I  might  have  done.  In  fact,  writing  a  letter  is  all  the  same, 
so  far  as  the  process  is  concerned,  whether  it  cost  a  penny  or 
eightpence.  Term  begins  on  Saturday,  which  I  am  really  sorry 
for  ;  you  find  all  Oxford  men  complain  of  the  change  from  vaca- 
tion to  term ;  never  of  the  reverse.  We  have  had  a  rather 
pleasant  interesting  man  visiting  us  this  week  ;  a  Mr.  Bellasis, 
a  barrister  from  London,  very  High  Church,  a  friend  of  Ward 
of  Balliol,  who  happens  to  be  away  now.  Newman  and  others 
have  entertained  him.  It  is  amusing  to  see  the  variety  of  a 
London  barrister  in  Oxford.  Of  the  London  element  he  retains 
enough  to  make  a  change  from  what  one  commonly  sees  here  ; 
though  with  none  of  the  disagreeable  features  of  it;  for 
example,  he  is  so  much  more  fluent,  and  can  give  regular 
narrations  with  spirit,  showing  a  person  who  has  been  accus- 

Catholics,  and,  as  I  supposed,  at  Rome,  I  considered  I  had  a  fulfilment 
before  my  eyes,  how  the  Court  of  Borne  plaj-ed  fast  and  loose,  and  fulfilled 
the  bad  points  I  had  seen  put  down  in  books  against  it.  Here  we  saw  what 
Rome  was  in  action,  whatever  she  might  be  when  quiescent.  Her  conduct 
was  simply  secular  and  political.  This  feeling  led  me  into  the  excess  of  being 
very  rude  to  the  zealous  and  most  charitable  man,  Mr.  Spencer,  when  he 
came  to  Oxford  in  January  1S40.    See  Apologia,  Part  v. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


97 


tomed  to  argue  and  make  speeches.  .  .  .  Thursday. —  I  did  not 
send  this  letter  yesterday  from  stinginess,  because  I  should 
have  had  to  pay  twopence  for  being  late,  and  pennies  now  are 
valuable  things,  which  is  one  advantage  of  the  penny  post — it 
makes  one  richer.  Newman  has  heard  from  Cholderton  this 
morning.  Tom  is  in  a  difficulty  as  to  the  two  volumes  [Fronde's 
Remains,  second  series]  being  on  such  different  subjects.  Each 
is  certainly  worth  a  review  in  itself.  Rogers,  writing  to 
Newman,  says  he  finds  it  is  the  fashion  at  Cambridge  to  despise 
the  vulgar  clamour  against  Froude,  and  make  out  a  common 
ground  between  him  and  themselves  on  the  ground  of  intellect. 
Other  points  of  course  are  inferior  matters.  They  have  formed 
such  an  extreme  idea  of  his  amiableness  from  his  letters  that 
they  cannot  imagine  him  able  to  be  distant  or  severe  to  any 
one,  even  where  principle  was  concerned.  This  is  odd,  as 
being  so  different  from  the  common  impression  made.  .  .  . 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

Oxford,  February  15,  1840. 
The  theological  meetings  are  set  up  again,  having  been  only 
discontinued  on  account  of  Mrs.  Pusey's  illness.  The  first  was 
last  night.  Newman  read  a  paper  on  the  Monophysite  Heresy, 
which  perhaps  will  not  convey  many  ideas  to  you  any  more 
than  it  did  to  myself  before  the  information  I  received  last 
night.  Pusey,  Williams,  and  Keble  are  to  be  the  other  contri- 
butors this  term. 

To  his  Sister. 

[After  dwelling  on  the  circumstances  of  a  sad  death] — 

Oxford,  February  25, 1840. 
Things  of  a  murderous  character  have  been  going  on  here 
also  of  late,  though  they  have  not  terminated  fatally,  or  are 
likely  to  end  in  anything  else  than  a  sentence  on  the  culprit 
by  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  either  fine  or  rustication.  Ward 
(of  Trinity)  who  has  just  published  the  Statutes  of  Magdalen, 
has  been  challenging  Sewell  (a  Fellow  of  Magdalen) — they  say 
not  without  provocation  :  only  those  who  live  in  glass  houses 

G 


98 


Letters  of  the 


should  not  throw  stones ;  and  if  a  person  cannot  stomach  an 
affront,  he  should  not  in  the  first  place  set  the  University 
against  him  by  showing  them  up  to  the  Radical  public.  A  good 
deal  of  correspondence  passed  between  him  and  Sewell  on  this 
business  ;  the  latter,  who  is  a  lawyer,  having  taken  up  the  cause 
of  his  own  College,  though  without  any  authority  from  the 
body  to  do  it.  .  .  .  But  the  whole  thing  has  been  mismanaged 
from  the  first,  the  College  not  having  done  anything  as  a  body ; 
so  that  individuals  in  it  have  done  what  they  liked.  In  this 
way  the  injunction  was  obtained,  which  was  a  most  impolitic 
proceeding.  "Well,  Ward  and  Sewell  corresponded,  and  the 
latter,  who  is  a  thoroughly  cool  fellow,  managed  to  irritate 
Ward  by  degrees,  till  a  kind  of  ambiguous  something  about 
satisfaction  was  mentioned.  Sewell  writes  back  to  say  that 
had  Ward  clearly  demanded  the  satisfaction  of  a  gentleman  in 
the  obvious  sense  of  that  expression  he  should  have  known  what 
course  to  pursue, — that  is,  he  meant,  have  laid  the  note  before 
the  Vice-Chancellor ;  but  Ward  seems  to  have  taken  another 
view  of  the  words,  which  was  probably  that  intended  for  him 
to  take ;  and  accordingly  the  next  answer  brings  a  formal 
challenge.  Sewell  having  gained  his  point  proceeds  to  the 
Vice-Chancellor  and  gives  him  the  note.  Ward  is  Deputy 
High  Steward  of  the  University,  which  is  a  kind  of  judicial 
situation,  though  merely  nominal ;  and  therefore  his  conduct  is 
so  much  the  more  unacademical.  What  will  be  done  to  him 
is  not  known,  but  probably  he  will  be  treated  very  leniently, 
from  the  provocation  he  had,  and  still  more  from  the  dislike 
there  will  be  to  seem  to  persecute.  The  Vice-Chancellor  is 
very  kind  to  him  ;  and  will  give  him  every  chance.  Dr.  Ogle 
is  Ward's  great  friend,  however :  goes  with  him  and  sits  by 
him  in  the  court,  and  pulls  his  sleeve,  and  prevents  him  from 
breaking  out  into  rages.  This  is  excessively  good-natured ;  but 
Dr.  Ogle  has  always  had  rather  a  liking  for  him.  He  is,  after 
all,  more  a  weak  intemperate  person  than  a  malignant;  and 
people  in  general  are  rather  disposed  to  take  his  part  against 
Sewell.  The  President  of  Magdalen  has  come  out  in  a  way 
which  makes  people  smile.  Sewell  called  on  him  on  receiving 
the  challenge,  thinking  that  he  should  of  course  have  the 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


99 


warmest  sympathy  from  the  President,  and  commendation 
for  his  moderation.  But  the  President  was  so  obtuse  or  so 
malicious  that  he  did  not  at  all  enter  into  the  delicacy  of 
the  situation.  "  Well,  sir,  and  do  your  friends  object  to  your 
giving  satisfaction?"  Sewell  could  only  say  that  the  best 
friend  he  had  in  the  world  did ;  namely,  himself.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Pugin  at  this  date  was  a  (perhaps  the)  great  architectural 
authority,  and  his  name  interesting  to  the  home  circle  as  the 
architect  of  a  new  Eoman  Catholic  Chapel  in  Derby,  noticed 
in  the  articles  on  Churches  preparing  for  the  British  Critic ; 
the  woodcut  illustrations  for  which  were  then  in  the  hands 
of  his  correspondent. 

TO  HIS  SlSTEE. 

Oxfoed,  February  27,  1840. 
My  deae  Anne, — Pugin  came  on  Friday,  last  week,  and  stayed 
over  the  Sunday.  I  dined  with  him  on  the  Saturday  and  Sunday. 
On  the  latter  day  Newman  dined.  It  was  his  birthday,  and 
Bloxam  had  asked  him  before  Pugin's  coming.  However,  he 
had  no  objection  to  meet  him  in  a  small  party.  Pugin  was 
infinitely  amusing,  in  his  peculiar  way,  architecture  of  course, 
church  ceremonies,  liturgies,  antiquities  of  all  kinds  being  the 
subjects.  He  is  the  most  unwearied  talker,  for  a  spirited  one, 
that  I  ever  heard.  From  six  o'clock  to  eleven  on  Saturday 
was  he  on  the  move,  never  stopping,  and  when  he  left  off  he 
was  quite  the  same  as  he  was  when  he  began.  Plato  would  set 
him  down  as  one  of  his  irascible  characters  ;  for  everything  moves 
his  wrath,  especially  in  architecture.  Such  an  one  ought  to  be 
hanged  for  building  such  a  steeple.  He  is  never  satisfied  with 
half  terms,  but  sends  people  to  their  final  destination,  the 
instant  they  become  offensive.  I  said  the  Dean  of  York  ought 
to  be  suspended — "In  what  way,  sir?"  as  quick  as  lightning. 
His  disgust  when  we  told  him  of  the  new  church  in  the 
Arabesque  style  about  to  be  built  at  Wilton  was  most  amusing. 
He  will  not  admit  any  style  of  architecture  for  churches  but 


IOO 


Letters  of  the 


the  genuine  Gothic,  which  he  considers  the  maturity  of  the  art, 
and  all  before  it  merely  steps.  So  he  could  not  bear  even  the 
Byzantine  style  being  introduced  at  all  here,  or  in  India. 
When  I  asked  whether  he  would  allow  any  variety  on  account 
of  the  climate  and  situation,  he  said  the  pointed  arch,  and 
nothing  but  that,  ought  to  prevail  wherever  Christianity  ex- 
isted. His  summary  judgments  are  as  amusing  a  feature  in 
him  as  any,  and  he  has  powers  of  language  and  quickness  fully 
equal  to  express  them ;  whatever  extremity  of  disgust  they 
may  imply.  So  conversation,  as  you  may  easily  suppose,  is  a 
delightful  exercise  to  him.  Before  Newman  he  was  not  quite 
so  vigorous.  Lord  Shrewsbury's  not  being  present  at  the 
opening  of  the  chapel  in  Derby  was  owing  to  him.  Mr.  Singe, 
it  seems,  is  one  of  the  old  school  of  Boman  Catholics  who  unite 
with  Liberals,  and  want  to  attract  people  to  their  places  by 
music  and  concerts.  Pugin  had  all  along  solemnly  protested 
against  any  other  but  organ  music  at  the  opening ;  but  what 
was  his  disgust  on  the  night  before,  when  he  saw  a  man  with 
a  fiddle-case  making  his  way  to  the  organ  loft.  He  could 
hardly  forbear  knocking  him  over  with  his  own  fiddle.  How- 
ever, he  forthwith  wrote  to  Lord  Shrewsbury  to  explain  why 
he  (P.)  would  not  be  present,  and  the  latter,  having  the  same 
views,  withdrew  also.  The  gaslights,  that  have  been  introduced 
since  then,  excited  Pugin's  displeasure  immensely  when  he 
saw  the  place  last.  In  fact  he  has  washed  his  hands  now  clean 
of  the  place,  and  hardly  considers  it  his  own.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

J.  B.  M.  always  shows  himself  tolerant  of  great  talkers.  His 
temperament  fitted  him  for  the  part  of  listener.  The  flow  of 
speech,  where  there  was  fire  and  energy  of  expression,  stimulated 
his  speculative  vein.  The  inexhaustible  talker  was  a  study  on 
which  he  was  content  to  dwell ;  he  did  not  grudge  him  his 
monopoly.  He  could  patiently  wait  his  turn — resigned  if  it 
never  came — while  thought  was  busy  on  the  man  as  well  as  his 
topic,  on  the  phenomena  that  interminable  powers  of  utterance 
were  to  him.   Thus  we  see  that,  though  architecture  was  not  his 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


101 


Hue  as  it  was  his  brother's,  he  could  listen  unwearied  to  Pugin 
debating  on  his  one  theme ; — to  a  "  scornful  invective,"  for 
example,  on  the  subject  of  papier-macM  as  a  substitute  for  oak 
carving  (one  of  the  monstrous  heresies  of  the  day) :  "  I  never 
heard  such  a  man — quite  wonderful  his  powers  of  talking — 
both  for  endlessness  and  unflagging  spirit." 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  7,  1840. 

My  dear  Anne, — I  ought  to  congratulate  Charles  first  on 
his  birthday  [February  29],  that  being  so  rare  an  occurrence  in 
his  life.  We  are  remarkably  quiet  just  now;  the  only  thing  that 
has  made  a  stir  lately  being  the  affair  between  Ward  and  Sewell 
that  I  told  you  of.  Sentence  of  Bannitio  was  pronounced  on 
the  offender,  which  sounds  very  awful ;  but  it  really  only  goes 
to  exclude  him  from  coming  into  Oxford  for  the  rest  of  this 
term.  As  Ward  does  not  live  in  the  town,  but  at  Headington, 
this  will,  of  course,  be  no  great  infliction  on  him.  They  were 
purposely  as  lenient  as  they  could  be,  on  account  of  the  provoca- 
tion Sewell  had  given.  Last  Sunday  the  judges,  Patterson  and 
Gurney,  went  to  St.  Mary's  to  hear  Newman — not  in  their 
wigs  of  course.  This  is  a  sign  of  things  getting  into  notice. 
Bloxam  is  going  to,  or  rather  has  given-  up,  Littlemore,  and 
Copeland  is  thinking  of  it.  .  .  . 

I  will  tell  you  some  good  things  to  read — though  not  sure 
they  are  quite  in  your  way :  viz.,  Carlyle's  Chartism ;  the 
article  on  Lord  Clive  in  the  last  Edinburgh,  and  the  one  on 
the  Penny  Postage  in  the  same.  Carlyle  is  a  very  striking 
writer ;  full  of  a  sort  of  grim  humour : — the  grin-horribly-a- 
ghastly-smile  kind  of  style ;  the  subject,  too,  being  one  which 
develops  such  a  power  well.  This  is  not  an  inviting  or  flowery 
description  to  give  of  an  author ;  but  for  a  variety  he  is 
wonderfully  impressive.  Lord  Clive  is  Macaulay's.  I  recom- 
mend the  Penny  Post  to  John;  it  is  very  clever  and  sharply 
written,  but  not  quite  fair  always.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 


102 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sister. 

March  17,  1840. 
Dear  Anne,—.  .  .  By  the  way,  I  have  a  book  from  Isaac 
Williams — a  present  to  J emima ;  a  copy  of  his  last  volume  of 
poems,  which  she  shall  have  at  the  earliest  opportunity.  I 
hope  she  has  not  bought  it.  A  modest  author,  like  Isaac 
Williams,  does  not  take  this  into  account.  How  do  you  like 
the  dedication  to  the  Church  of  the  Fathers  ?  Williams  was  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  aware  of  such  an  honour  coming  till  he 
saw  his  own  name  in  print.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  it  were  a 
translation  of  some  old  patristic  dedication  rather  than  an 
original  one.  .  .  .  Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Mrs.  Thomas  Mozley  he  had  written. : — 

"  Your  brother's  Church  of  the  Fathers  is  out,  dedicated  to 
Isaac  Williams  :  '  The  sight  of  whom  reminds  his  friends  of 
holy,  happy,  and  primitive  times,'  which  is  more  than  one  could 
say  of  the  sight  of  a  great  many  persons ;  I  think  those  are  the 
words.  The  book  is  to  bring  out  the  character  of  the  Fathers, 
and  show  them  as  men,  that  they  were  not  always  folios." 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  April  4,  1840. 
My  dear  Anne, — Of  course  you  have  read  half  through  the 
British  Critic  by  this  time.  I  have  only  read  the  Froude  article 
[by  T.  M.].  ...  It  gives  too  much  the  impression  of  Froude  as  a 
philosopher  simply,  instead  of  one  who  was  constantly  bringing 
his  general  maxims  to  bear  most  forcibly  and  pointedly  on  the 
present  state  of  things ;  on  particular  classes,  sects,  and  parties. 
It  does  not  bring  out  Froude's  great  practical  and  almost 
lawyer-like  penetration.  The  first  two  or  three  pages  about 
Froude  personally,  I  like  very  much.1 

1  The  author  of  the  article  was  as  critical  on  its  shortcomings,  as  a 
whole,  as  any  of  his  readers.  Some  sentences,  from  the  opening,  one  is 
tempted  to  give  :  "  The  contents  of  the  present  collection  are  very  miscel- 
laneous, and  rather  fragments  and  sketches  than  complete  compositions. 
This,  of  course,  might  be  expected  in  the  works  of  a  man  whose  days  were 
few  and  interrupted  by  illness,  if,  indeed,  that  may  be  called  an  interruption 
which,  at  least  all  the  period  in  which  the  pages  before  us  were  written,  was 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  103 
To  his  Sister. 

The  Altar-cloth  arrived  in  Oxford  on  Thursday,  and  was 
despatched  to  Littleniore  yesterday ;  I  have  not  seen  it  yet, 
but  shall  take  the  earliest  opportunity.  I  suppose  it  will  be 
put  up  on  Easter  Eve,  for  the  Sunday.  Newman  preaches  at 
Littleniore  that  day,  and  comes  to  Oxford  after  service,  after 
which  Copeland  takes  the  place.  Newman's  catechising  has 
been  a  great  attraction  this  Lent,  and  men  have  gone  out  of 
Oxford  every  Sunday  to  hear  it.  I  heard  him  last  Sunday, 
and  thought  it  very  striking :  done  with  such  spirit,  and  the 
children  so  up  to  it ;  answering  with  the  greatest  alacrity.  It 
would  have  provoked  some  people's  bile  immoderately  to  have 
heard  them  all  unanimous  on  the  point  of  the  nine  orders  of 
angels ;  the  definiteness  of  the  number  being  in  itself  a  great 
charm  to  the  minds  of  the  children.  He  has  been  also  teaching 
them  to  sing,  during  the  week-time,  and  the  fiddle  has  been 
brought  into  requisition,,  considerably  to  their  astonishment ; 
he  found  it  the  best  way  possible  of  keeping  them  in  tune.  St. 
Mary's,  as  you  may  suppose,  during  this  interval,  has  been  con- 
siderably thinned,  though  very  good  sermons  have  been  preached 
there  by  Copeland,  Ward,  and  Spranger.    It  was  curious  to 

every  day  sensibly  drawing  him  to  his  grave.  In  Mr.  Froude's  case,  how- 
ever, we  cannot  set  down  much  of  this  incompleteness  to  the  score  of  illness. 
The  strength  of  his  religious  impressions,  the  boldness  and  clearness  of  his 
views,  his  long  habits  of  self-denial,  and  his  unconquerable  energy  of  mind 
triumphed  over  weakness  and  decay,  till  men,  with  all  their  health  and 
strength  about  them,  might  gaze  upon  his  attenuated  form,  struck  with  a 
certain  awe  of  wonderment  at  the  brightness  of  his  wit,  the  intenseness 
of  his  mental  vision,  and  the  iron  strength  of  his  argument.  .  .  .  We 
will  venture  a  remark  or  two  with  regard  to  that  ironical  turn,  which 
certainly  does  appear  in  various  shapes  in  the  first  part  of  these  Remains. 
Unpleasant  as  irony  may  sometimes  be,  there  need  not  go  with  it,  and,  in 
this  instance,  there  did  not  go  with  it  the  smallest  real  asperity  of  temper. 
Who  that  remembers  the  inexpressible  sweetness  of  his  smile,  or  the  deep 
and  melancholy  pity  with  which  he  would  speak  of  those  whom  he  felt  to 
be  the  victims  of  modern  delusion,  would  not  be  forward  to  contradict  such 
a  suspicion  ?  Such  expressions,  we  will  venture  to  say,  and  not  harshness, 
or  anger,  or  gloom,  animate  the  features  of  that  countenance,  which  will 
never  cease  to  haunt  the  memory  of  those  who  knew  him.  His  irony 
arose  from  that  peculiar  mode  in  which  he  viewed  all  earthly  things,  himself 
and  all  that  was  dear  to  him  not  excepted.  It  was  his  poetry." — British 
Critic,  April  1840,  p.  396. 


1 04  Letters  of  the 

see,  however,  how  many  continued  to  go  out  of  habit,  though 
knowing  that  Newman  was  away.1 

The  writer  of  the  Magdalen  Statutes  article  [in  the  April 
number  of  the  British  Critic]  everybody  thinks  to  be  Hope,  of 
Merton,  whose  name  you  may  have  heard.  Oakeley  is  the 
writer  of  the  first  [the  Church  Service] ;  he  is,  as  you  observe, 
rather  stiff  and  formal  in  his  style,  and  wants  spirit.  Some 
good  reviews,  as  you  say,  are  wanted  for  the  B.  C.  Essay  after 
essay,  however  good  each  may  be  in  itself,  gives  a  prosing  effect, 
viewed  as  a  series.  Eogers  should  write  some  more  poetry 
articles ;  critiques  are  what  keep  up  the  Quarterly.  Montrose 
is  Le  Bas's.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  Altar-cloth  mentioned  in  the  last  letter  had  been  under- 
taken, under  Mrs.  John  Mozley's  auspices,  for  Littlemore  Church. 
Mr.  Newman  had  wished  for  one,  and  left  it  with  his  sister  and 
her  sisters-in-law,  such  near  neighbours  as  to  constitute  in  a 
sense  one  family,  to  work  one.  It  may  be  said  that  zeal  and 
ignorance  worked  hand  in  hand  throughout  the  arduous  task ; 
nothing  was  known  of  the  laws  of  ecclesiastical  needle-work 
by  any  of  the  party.  The  youngest  sister — now  lost  to  us — 
whose  taste  would  have  ruled  a  few  years  later,  was  too  young 
to  have  a  voice ;  Mr.  Newman  had  no  opinions  on  the  subject. 
It  was  his  way  to  trust  the  good-will  of  his  friends,  and  to 
hope  the  best  from  their  endeavours.  As  one  of  the  workers,  I 
make  these  admissions,  only  pleading  that  the  ignorance  was 
not  of  the  presumptuous  order.  There  was  no  authority  to  be 
consulted — no  formed  taste  in  the  matter  of  church  needle- 
work anywhere ;  it  had  to  be  awakened  ;  and,  as  far  as  I  know, 
the  Littlemore  Altar-cloth  was  this  awakener.  It  gave  the  start ; 
though  its  own  fate — the  shape  being  altogether  out  of  ecclesias- 
tical order — was,  when  Littlemore  Church  came  to  other  hands, 
to  be  banished  to  the  colonies,  as  I  have  heard,  giving  place, 
no  doubt,  to  something  more  in  harmony  with  the  new  order. 

1  See  Apologia,  Part  v.  :  "I  meditated  retirement  to  Littlemore.  ...  I 
gave  myself  up  to  teaching  in  the  Poor  School,  and  practising  the  choir." 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


To  his  Sister. 

The  Altar-cloth  creates  great  admiration,  with  the  exception, 
as  of  course  you  must  expect,  of  a  few  criticisms ;  the  chief  of 
which  is  the  one  you  suggest  yourself.  .  .  .  Kogers  seemed  to 
have  a  few  to  make;  but  did  not  express  them  decidedly. 
Looking  at  the  needle-work,  I  can  easily  understand  the 
immense  time  it  must  have  taken.  .  .  .  [Again,  April  20.]  You 
are  quite  right  in  saying  that  I  have  not  seen  the  Altar-cloth. 
In  the  chapel  it  was  quite  another  thing ;  I  saw  the  whole  first 
in  a  hurried  way  in  Newman's  little  room.  .  .  .  Indeed,  I  can  only 
say,  and  it  is  in  perfect  sincerity,  not  from  any  wish  to  please  or 
flatter,  that  I  think  it  a  beautiful  performance ;  there  is  a  grace 
and  splendour  about  it  which  is  quite  ethical,  and  which  ele- 
vates and  composes  the  mind  to  look  at.  ...  I  went  up  to 
Littlemore  to  the  morning  service  to-day  (Easter  Monday) ;  the 
children  were  all  dressed  in  pink  bonnets  and  white  tippets. 

This  last  notice  of  Easter  adornings  is  a  sequel  to  the  Lenten 
catechisings. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  May  5, 1840. 
Dear  Anne, — Harriett  has  doubtless  told  you  of  all  our 
Cholderton  doings,  but  I  have  nothing  else  at  present  to  talk 
about.  I  have  enjoyed  my  visit  very  much.  .  .  .  On  Friday 
morning  we  all  went  to  Durnford.  The  greater  part  then 
immediately  set  off  in  two  pony  carriages  to  the  C.s ;  why,  I. 
cannot  imagine.  Durnford  is  the  most  beautiful  place  possible 
now ;  besides  which  I  did  not  feel  disposed  to  cramp  up  my 
legs  in  a  pony  carriage  any  longer,  having  already  taken  two 
drives  in  the  course  of  the  morning.  The  people  in  these 
parts  have  no  idea  of  any  one  using  his  legs  ;  they  are  quite 
astonished  at  any  one  preferring  a  walk  to  a  drive,  though  you 
only  have  to  walk  over  the  way.  Legs  have  vanished  alto- 
gether from  their  notion  of  the  human  shape ;  they  are  never 
taken  into  account,  and  in  their  place  four  wheels  appear,  two 
small  ones  in  front,  two  large  ones  behind,  converting  man  into 
a  kind  of  centaur  or  large  spider.    I,  as  I  observed,  boasting  a 


io6 


Letters  of  the 


pair  of  legs,  declined  taking  part  in  the  expedition,  and  pro- 
ceeded with  Tom  to  walk  in  the  grounds.  Tom  went  into  the 
manor-house — the  old  building  near  the  church — and  began 
to  poke  about  some  old  chairs  and  screens,  on  which  I  made 
off  and  had  an  hour's  ramble  in  the  woods;  returned,  and 
overheard  Tom  and  Mr.  Thurland  talking  in  the  churchyard ; 
retreated  again  to  the  woods.  It  was  a  splendid  day,  and  I 
never  saw  a  place  look  better.    Tom  had  a  long  argument  with 

Mr.  ,  on  the  subject  of  the  old  monks  and  hermits.  His 

opponent  prosed  considerably  ;  Tom  was,  as  usual,  victorious. 
Mr.  Fowle  was  not  well,  and  hardly  opened  his  mouth.  I  have 
taken  a  great  liking  to  Mr.  Fowle 1  (vicar  of  Amesbury) ;  his 
amiable  qualities  and  frankness  appear  more  and  more  every 
time  one  sees  him.  ...  I  have  not  said  about  our  party.  Con- 
ceive the  shock  I  had  to  endure.  There  were  three  ladies  and 
a  whole  heap  of  men  ;  the  room  was  filled  with  men.  Tom,  by 
some  exquisite  management,  made  all  the  three  ladies  sit  together 
at  table  [no  doubt  in  his  horror  of  draughts].  What  more  can 
I  say  ?  I  did  not  recover  myself  for  some  time  afterwards.  I 
beg  to  say,  however,  that  it  was  not  from  any  selfish  motive. 
I  should  have  felt  the  same  disgust  if  I  had  had  to  take  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  proceedings.  Luckily,  Mrs.  S.  was 
opposite  my  part  of  the  table,  and  talked  a  good  deal ;  she  is 
an  agreeable  person.  ...  To  be  continued. — Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

May  9,  1840. 

As  soon  as  I  came  up  from  Cholderton,  I  found  several  per- 
sons expecting  that  I  was  going  down  forthwith  to  Christie's 
to  help  him  for  an  indefinite  period ;  I  never  having  had  the 
thing  mentioned  to  me.  I  knew  Christie  was  in  rather  sad 
case,  and  felt  suitable  compassion,  and  had  really  almost  made 
up  my  mind  to  go  yesterday  (only  for  the  term) ;  but  on 
mature  consideration  I  am  resolving  it  to  be  a  bore  to  leave 

1  "  H.  E.  M.  has  found  that  Mr.  Fowle,  whom  you  know,  is  cousin  of  our 
favourite,  Miss  Austin.  Harriett,  of  course,  asked  a  great  many  questions, 
and  made  out  that  she  was  an  exceedingly  nice,  amiable,  pretty  person,  just 
what  one  would  wish  her  to  be." 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozlcy,  D.D. 


107 


Oxford  immediately,  after  one  has  come  up  to  it  again  with 
the  intention  of  staying  the  term.  And  Christie's,  after  all, 
is  not  a  harder  case  than  multitudes  of  clergy — not  nearly  so 
hard  as  Mr.  Fowle's,  for  example.  I  daresay  he  works  like  a 
horse,  but  all  one  can  say  is,  this  is  a  troublesome  world. 
[Proceeding  to  give  good  unselfish  reasons  for  staying  up] :  I 
witnessed  on  Thursday  the  ceremony  of  laying  the  first  stone  of 
a  school  at  Garsington,  W.  Pusey's  curacy.  The  children  all 
walked  in  procession  from  the  rectory  with  long  staffs — the  girls 
with  bunches  of  lilac,  the  boys  with  wallflowers.  They  formed 
a  circle  round  the  place,  making  a  sort  of  large  garland  with 
their  staffs  :  the  effect  very  good. 

The  chief  event  of  the  past  week  was  B.'s  visit  to  Oxford, 
which  caused  quite  a  sensation  and  a  series  of  dinner-parties 
in  honour  of  him.  He  was  of  course  in  his  element,  and  spent 
ten  days  exactly  after  his  old  fashion,  in  rushing  from  one 
man's  rooms  to  another.  He  had  only  one  answer  to  give  for 
a  long  time  to  all  questions,  viz.,  how  glad  he  was  to  be  in 
Oxford  again.  So  whatever  he  was  asked,  whether  it  was, 
How  do  you  like  your  curacy  ?  How  do  you  like  your  rector  ? 
he  had  a  deaf  ear  to  everything  that  was  not  immediately  con- 
nected with  the  fact  of  his  actually  there  and  then  being  locally 
and  corporeally  in  Oxford. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

It  had  become  clear  that  association  with  the  writers  of 
Tracts  for  the,  Times  was  a  bar  to  election  to  a  Fellowship  in 
most  Colleges.  It  was  this  that  had  reduced  the  Hall  to  the 
solitude  described  in  a  previous  letter.  One  more  trial  was  to 
be  made  by  James  Mozley,  that  he  might  continue  in  Oxford, 
so  evidently  the  home  suited  to  his  taste  and  genius.  I  find  a 
note  from  Mr.  Newman  addressed  to  him  at  Keele,  where  he 
was  taking  a  friend's  duty  : — 

"  Monday  will  do  for  your  coming.  I  have  got  your  baptis- 
mal register  and  your  College  testimonial,  and  suppose  you  want 
nothing  else  ;  at  least  Bloxam  tells  me  nothing  else  is  wanted. 
I  am  sorry  you  have  made  up  your  mind  to  leave  Oxford, 


io8 


Letters  of  the 


but  am  sure  that  it  is  better  for  you  to  be  settled  than  to  be 
in  doubt. — Ever  yours  affectionately,  J.  H.  N." 

To  his  Sister. 

July  25,  1840. 

My  dear  Anne, — I  have  but  just  time  to  tell  you  that  I  am 
elected  at  Magdalen.  It  was  the  nearest  thing  in  the  world. 
However,  on  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad  side  of  fortune,  a 
miss  is  as  good  as  a  mile.  The  examination  was  considerably 
stiff,  especially  yesterday.  The  candidate  who  was  set  against 
me  was  Cholmeley  of  the  Lincolnshire  family,  and  of  course 
great  interest.  A  few  of  the  Fellows,  I  believe,  however,  went 
by  the  examination  simply.  My  great  friends  were  Bloxam, 
Faber,  and  Palmer.  ...  I  should  infallibly  have  lost  the  election 
if,  most  fortunately,  two  or  three  of  my  opponents  had  not  been 
kept  away  from  voting.  Bloxam  said  that  he  expected,  while 
the  voting  was  actually  going  on,  to  see  the  doors  open  and 
these  said  Fellows  to  walk  in.  However,  luckily  it  happened 
as  it  has.  Touching  the  examination  I  passed,  it  is  a  matter 
of  little  consequence,  but  I  believe  it  had  the  effect  of  enabling 
my  friends  to  exert  themselves  and  push  me  forward.  But 
only  a  very  few  went  by  the  examination  itself.  ...  I  know 
you  will  all  be  pleased  enough :  and  it  is  one  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  I  feel  on  the  occasion,  to  be  conscious  of  that.  The 
thing  was  so  near  run  that  Bloxam  had  actually  written  to 
Newman  this  morning,  "  Break  it  to  Mozley  that  he  will  lose  it 
by  two  votes."  It  seems  to  me  a  complete  dream,  and  I  am 
writing  now  as  if  I  was  asleep.  A  letter  of  Pusey's  to  the 
President  had  great  weight,  I  believe. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

A  letter  from  my  brother  Tom  opens  the  year  1841.  His 
interests  were  so  one  with  his  brother's  at  this  time,  that  there 
needs  no  apology  for  inserting  such  parts  of  the  letter  as  con- 
cerned both  equally. 

T.  M.  to  his  Sister. 

Cholderton,  January  11,  1841. 
My  dear  Anne, —  ...  It  is  now  settled  enough  for  me  to 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


109 


tell  you  that  Newman  has  handed  over  to  me  the  editorship  of 
the  British  Critic.  He  takes  the  next  number,  and  I  begin  with 
the  July  number.  Eivington,  at  least,  puts  a  good  face  on  the 
matter,  and  expresses  himself  satisfied  with  me.  In  the  written 
instructions  I  have  received  from  J.  H.  N,  I  find  one,  "  make 
James  write,"  so  let  him  know  I  expect  something  from  him 
in  July.  You  need  not  talk  of  this  at  present.  ...  I  have 
made  great  preparations  in  the  way  of  lists  of  subjects,  etc.  It 
is  of  course  a  very  serious  responsibility,  .  .  .  and  as  for  my 
opportunities  and  disadvantages,  I  think  they  are  so  nearly 
balanced  that  I  have  no  need  to  complain.  Very  few  people 
can  write  anything  worth  reading  in  London  or  large  towns 
unless  they  possess  the  most  popular  and  superficial  qualifica- 
tions. A  crowd  stuns  and  overpowers  the  mind,  and  great 
competition  discourages  those  who  have  any  tendency  to 
diffidence.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  Thos.  Mozley. 

Being  in  London  when  Oxford  sent  up  an  address  to  the 
Queen  after  the  birth  of  the  Princess  Eoyal,  November  1840, 
J.  B.  M.  joined  the  deputation.  All  scenes  stimulated  thought 
in  him,  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  always  an  object  of 
interest. 

To  his  Sister. 

Tavistock  Hotel,  February  4,  1841. 
I  sit  down  with  cold  hands  just  to  give  you  an  account  of 
our  University  deputation.  We  all  met  in  the  great  room 
(Almack's  that  was), and  wraited  about  half-an-hour.  I  recognised 
a  few  faces  that  I  knew,  but  most  seemed  to  be  London 
barristers  or  clergy.  None  except  the  deputation  itself  seemed 
to  have  come  from  Oxford,  a  thing  easily  to  be  accounted  for 
in  such  cold  weather.  ...  It  was  funny  enough  to  see  one's-self 
in  cap  and  gown  marching  through  London.  I  tried  to 
fathom  the  absurdity  of  it,  but  couldn't,  for  before  one  had 
moved  twenty  yards,  it  seemed  quite  natural ;  one  had  got  an 
Oxonian  atmosphere  in  the  midst  of  London,  and  was  carry- 
ing about  the  High  Street  at  one's  coat-tail.  On  reaching  the 
Palace  we  proceeded  up  the  great  staircase,  the  Duke  not 
having  appeared  yet.    He  brushed  past  us,  however,  as  we  were 


I  IO 


Letters  of  the 


on  the  stairs,  and  put  himself  at  the  head.  We  waited  more 
than  half  an  hour  in  the  ante-room.  At  last  the  folding-doors 
opened,  and  the  Queen,  or  rather  the  place  where  she  was,  for 
we  could  not  see  her  yet,  was  visible,  with  the  Duchess  of 
Sutherland  on  her  right,  and  Prince  Albert  on  her  left.  The 
Queen  was  perfectly  immovable  the  whole  time  the  address 
was  reading  :  the  higher  you  go  in  rank,  the  more  people  seem 
to  possess  this  power  of  absolute  immovableness.  The  Prince 
was,  if  possible,  more  so ;  he  might  have  been  a  cork  man  for 
all  that  one  saw  of  his  outside.  The  Duke  read  the  address  in 
a  regular  old  man's  voice,  but  very  emphatically,  though  I 
think  that  as  much  arose  from  his  want  of  control  over  his 
voice  as  from  intention.  The  Queen  read  her  answer  very 
well,  in  a  sweet  distinct  tone.  I  never  heard  a  better  speaking- 
voice.  When  the  deputation  were  presented  by  the  Duke  for 
kissing  hands,  she  looked  hard  at  every  one  as  he  came  up,  but 
her  face  as  immovable  as  ever.  She  curved  her  elbow  very 
gracefully  as  she  held  out  her  hand,  which  had  no  glove  on  it 
that  I  could  see.  The  Queen  was  dressed  in  white  satin,  with 
silver  facings,  etc.,  a  slight  gold  chain  round  her  neck,  and 
pearl  earrings,  the  right  foot  on  a  stool,  showing  off  her  dress 
well.  A  long  row  of  feathered  men  in  scarlet  supported  the 
throne  on  each  side,  which  added  to  the  effect,  but  they  were 
not  seen  till  we  backed  out.  The  Queen  seemed  amused  at  the 
process,  and  laughed  as  we  retired,  saying  something  to  the 
Prince.  The  Duke  proclaimed  each  man's  name  in  a  loud  voice 
as  he  presented  him  :  Professor  Wilson  of  Exeter,  Professor 
Walker  of  Wadham  College,  Mr.  Eden  of  Oriel,  etc.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  the  following  letter  a  subject  is  incidentally  touched  on, 
which,  under  the  title  Jerusalem  Bishopric,  was  momentous  in 
its  bearings,  though  not  effecting  any  of  the  objects  for  which 
it  was  designed. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  February  25,  1841. 
Manning  was  up  yesterday  to  preach.    He  gave  what  one 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozky,  D.D. 


1 1  r 


might  really  call  a  powerful  sermon ;  not  controversial,  but 
rather,  as  Coleridge  would  say,  introversial,  which  is  rather  his 
line  ;  that  is,  entering  into  and  describing  states  of  mind, 
struggles  within  ;  his  subject  being  Judas  gradually  giving  way 
to  his  besetting  sin.  He  is  certainly  very  deep,  but  not  always 
in  good  taste,  too  nice  and  pointed  in  his  style  and  his  delivery ; 
was  so  very  emphatic  in  every  little  word  and  sharp  thing  that 
he  came  across,  that  he  rather  defeated  himself  and  put  every- 
thing on  a  level.  Our  Palmer  [W.  Palmer  of  Magdalen]  is  think- 
ing of  answering  Hook,  but  has  not  got  very  far  in  it  yet.  As 
for  F.  Maurice,  it  is  really  no  use  to  take  him  in  hand.  He  is 
Mr.  F.  Maurice,  an  individual,  and  that  is  all.  Hook's  is  a  most 
amusing  pamphlet,  and  takes  everything  for  granted  with  such 
simplicity — that  the  Germans  must  be  orthodox  because  they 
have  certain  creeds — and  Bishop  Alexander  cannot  think  of 
doing  anything  uncanonical  after  Hope's  pamphlet.  .  .  . 

I  heard  rather  an  amusing  account  of  a  young  lady's  visit  to 
Oxford  last  term.  The  young  lady,  who  had  come  to  Pusey 
in  such  deep  distress  and  religious  perplexity,  it  seems  was 
flaunting  about  with  young  gentlemen  a  good  deal  of  the  time, 
shopping,  going  down  the  river,  and  amusing  herself  very 
pleasantly — dear,  good  Pusey  all  the  time  being  full  of  pity 
and  concern  for  her  painful  state  of  doubt  and  anxiety.  A 

certain  young  kid-gloved  and  scented  gentleman  of  

College  was  a  particular  favourite  of  the  young  lady,  but  she 
had  several  others  as  well,  and  used  to  go  about  quite  comitata 
caterva,  as  we  say  in  the  classics,  surrounded  by  a  body-guard 
of  handsome  young  gentlemen.  .  .  .  Pusey  had  ventured  to 
suggest  that  she  might  dress  a  little  more  soberly,  but  had  been 
answered  by  her  sister,  Would  he  have  young  ladies  go  about 
like  nuns  ?  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Still  more  important  is  the  announcement  in  the  letter  that 
follows. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  8,  1841. 

My  dear  Anne, — A  new  Tract  has  come  out  this  last  week, 
which  is  beginning  to  make  a  sensation.    It  is  on  the  Articles, 


I  I  2 


Letters  of  the 


and  shows  that  they  bear  a  highly  Catholic  meaning ;  and  that 
many  doctrines,  of  which  the  Eomanist  are  corruptions,  may 
be  held  consistently  with  them.  This  is  no  more  than  what 
we  know  as  a  matter  of  history,  for  the  Articles  were  expressly 
worded  with  a  view  to  bring  in  R.  Catholics.  But  people  are 
astonished  and  confused  at  the  idea  now,  as  if  it  was  quite 
new.  And  they  have  been  so  accustomed  for  a  long  time  to 
look  on  the  Articles  as  on  a  par  with  the  Creed,  that  they 
think,  I  suppose,  that  if  they  subscribe  to  them  they  are 
bound  to  hold  whatever  doctrines  are  (not  positively  stated  in 
them),  but  merely  not  condemned.  So  if  they  will  bear  a 
Tractarian  sense,  they  are  thereby  all  of  them  Tractarians.  But 
whatever  the  view  may  be,  there  seems  to  be  something  brew- 
ing, and  a  man  of  this  College  told  me  just  now  that  he  had 
been  canvassed  to  join  in  a  public  protest  against  the  Tract. 
It  is  of  course  highly  complimentary  to  the  whole  set  of  us  to 
be  so  very  much  surprised  that  we  should  think  what  we  hold 
to  be  consistent  with  the  Articles  which  we  have  subscribed. 
Whether  anything  will  really  come  of  the  matter  I  don't  know. 
A  hundred  of  the  Tract  sold  in  Oxford  on  Saturday.  The 
Warden  of  Wadham  is  alarmed,  but  as  yet  we  only  hear  of  a 
vague  impression  being  made,  and  have  not  got  any  particulars. 
.  .  .  Tours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  13,  1841. 
My  dear  Axn'E, — We  are  rather  in  a  state  of  excitement 
just  now,  owing  to  the  affair  I  mentioned  in  my  last  letter.  You 
have  probably  seen  in  the  Times  the  letter  from  the  four  tutors. 
This  was  followed  up  by  meetings  for  two  or  three  days 
running,  of  the  Heads  of  Houses  ;  the  Warden  of  Wadham  being 
the  chief,  instigated  they  say  by  Golightly — not  that  the  Tract 
itself  is  not  sufficient  reason  to  account  for  the  row,  for  it  cer- 
tainly is  bold  in  parts.  Xewman  expected  it  would  create  some 
disturbance,  but  not  quite  so  much  as  it  has.1  I  believe,  how- 
ever, the  main  cause  of  alarm  is  not  this  or  that  particular 
thing  in  it,  but  the  whole  subject  being  brought  to  bear  on  the 

1  See  Apologia,  1st  edition,  page  172,  173. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


"3 


Articles.  Those  who  have  always  thought  the  Articles  ultra  Pro- 
testant, and  been  accustomed  to  think  so  ever  since  they  were 
born,  are  naturally  horrified  at  the  idea  that  even  their  strong- 
hold does  not  protect  them,  and  that  the  wolf  may  come  in  and 
devour  them  any  day.  The  Heads  have  accordingly  met,  and 
very  furious  they  were.  The  first  day,  I  hear  on  good  authority, 
some  of  them  could  not  condescend  even  to  a  regular  discussion 
of  the  question,  so  entirely  had  their  vague  apprehensions  over- 
powered their  faculties.  Dr.  Richards,  the  Eector  of  Exeter, 
who  is  a  strong  man  on  our  side,  had  a  letter  from  Palmer  of 
Worcester,  in  his  pocket,  in  which  he  (Palmer)  declared  his  full 
approval  of  the  Tract,  intending  to  lay  it  before  them,  in  the  hope 
that  Palmer's  known  character  as  a  theologian  and  a  moderate 
man  would  have  some  effect  upon  them ;  but  they  were  in  such 
commotion  that  the  letter  would  have  been  lost  upon  them,  and 
he  did  not  read  it.  Palmer  sent  this  letter  quite  spontaneously, 
and  it  does  him  great  credit,  especially  as  he  and  Newman  were 
rather  on  cool  terms  some  time  ago.  They,  (the  Heads)  had  a 
meeting  again  yesterday,  but  what  conclusion  was  come  to  I 
have  not  heard.  A  virulent  article  has  appeared  in  the  Oxford 
Chronicle  to-day,  calling  for  the  extirpation  of  the  party  from 
the  University.  The  feeling  of  the  residents,  however,  as  a 
body,  is  either  so  strong  in  favour  of  the  view,  or,  where  this  is 
not  the  case,  so  tied  by  personal  connections  and  intimacies 
with  others  who  hold  them,  that  I  do  not  think  anything  could 
be  done  here  in  the  way  of  a  public  act  of  condemnation.  The 
only  possible  chance  we  can  think  of  is  their  bringing  up  clergy 
from  the  country  on  the  No-Popery  cry.  This  could  not  be 
done  if  any  time  were  allowed  people  to  reflect.  But  they  get 
up  a  cry  for  the  moment,  and  the  excitement  would  last  perhaps 
sufficiently  long  to  bring  up  men  by  the  railways  and  send  them 
back  again.  I  do  not  think  that  this  will  be  done,  but  it  is  the 
only  chance  one  can  think  of.  Any  proposal  of  the  kind  I 
mention  would  fall  most  exceedingly  flat  upon  the  residents. 
Some  person  took  the  trouble  to  write  a  note  to  The  Standard 
to  blazon  the  fact  of  that  little  disturbance  about  Morris's  ser- 
mon in  St.  Mary's  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  The  name  is  not 
mentioned,  but  it  is  ill-natured  to  recall  a  thing  so  long  past, 

H 


1 14 


Letters  of  the 


especially  as  nothing  official  was  done  on  the  occasion.  The 
Vice-Chancellor  only  gave  M.  advice  privately,  so  the  note  is 
a  misstatement  of  facts  altogether.  In  our  own  common  room 
the  other  day,  when  the  subject  was  introduced,  men  seemed 
divided  into  two  parts,  those  who  felt  with  the  Tract,  and  those 
who  were  entirely  indifferent  about  it. 

Keble  saw  it  before  it  came  out,  and  has  since  written  to  the 
Vice-Chancellor  to  claim  a  share  in  the  responsibility  of  it. 
One  hopes  the  thing  will  blow  over  after  a  little  fuss.  The. 
Times  taking  the  part  it  does  is  a  strong  fact;  and  attacks 
from  Eadical  papers  will  only  serve  to  mix  us  up  with  the 
Conservatives,  and  give  us  at  least  the  toleration  or  the  indif- 
ference of  that  party,  instead  of  incurring  their  disgust  too. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

Perhaps  in  the  line  of  action  that  followed  the  publication  of 
Tract  Ninety,  we  may  notice  the  first  symptom  of  a  difference 
in  view  between  James  Mozley  and  Mr.  Newman.  Though  he 
might  be  classed  among  the  young  men, — he  was  now  twenty- 
seven, — who  took  "  the  validity  of  their  interpretation  of  the 
Articles  from  Mr.  Newman  on  faith," 1  and  in  his  notices  of 
the  Tract  in  his  home  correspondence  he  seems  to  do  so,  his 
was  not  a  mind  or  a  disposition  to  repose  such  faith  on  any  one 
implicitly.  His  defence  of  the  line  of  No.  XC.  was  bona  fide. 
The  Tract  permanently  influenced  him,  yet  his  criticism  of  Mr. 
Newman's  mode  of  receiving  the  attack  upon  himself,  as  its 
author,  shows  that  he  stood  external  to  the  state  of  mind  which 
prompted  that  mode.  "  Confidence  in  me  was  lost,"  we  read  in 
the  Apologia,  "  but  I  had  already  lost  full  confidence  in  myself."2 

1  Apologia,  p.  337. 

2  "  Thoughts  had  passed  over  me  a  year  and  a  half  hefore,  which  for  the 
time  had  profoundly  troubled  me — they  had  gone.  I  had  not  less  confidence 
in  the  power  and  the  prospects  of  the  Apostolical  movement  than  before,  not 
less  confidence  than  before  in  the  grievousness  of  what  I  called  the  dominant 
orrors  of  Rome  ;  but  how  was  I  any  more  to  have  absolute  confidence  in 
myself  ?  how  was  I  to  have  confidence  inmy  present  confidence  ?  how  was 
I  to  be  sure  that  I  should  always  think  as  I  thought  now  ?  I  felt  that  by 
this  event  a  kind  Providence  had  saved  me  from  an  impossible  position  in 
the  future." — Apologia,  p.  173. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  115 


Mr.  Newman  was  not  one  to  infuse  doubt  by  design,  and  as 
James  Mozley  had  never  any  leaning  towards  Rome,  or  for  a 
moment  was  shaken  in  his  allegiance  to  the  Church  of  his  bap- 
tism, nothing  passed  to  excite  misgiving.  He  was  therefore 
puzzled,  and  evidently  disappointed  at  the  line  taken. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  17,  1841. 
.  .  .  The  storm  seems  to  have  blown  over,  and  in  a  much 
shorter  time  than  one  thought  of.  The  Heads  of  Houses  issued 
a  manifesto  yesterday,  which  you  will  see  in  the  papers.  This 
expression  of  opinion  is  not  of  course  invested  with  any  autho- 
rity. Neither  the  Heads  of  Houses,  nor  even  Convocation  itself, 
have  the  power  of  interpreting  the  Articles  in  a  way  to  bind 
others,  and  there  is  nothing  which  can  prevent  tutors  from  lectur- 
ing in  what  way  they  please  in  divinity,  except  a  positive  injunc- 
tion from  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  J.  H.  N.  has  written  a 
very  polite  answer  to  the  Vice-Chancellor.  But  whether  they 
will  be  provoked  to  think  it  humbug  and  concealed  triumph,  or 
be  softened  by  it,  I  hardly  know.  Though  admiring  the  letter,  I 
confess,  for  my  own  part,  I  think  a  general  confession  of  humi- 
lity was  irrelevant  to  the  present  occasion,  the  question  being 
simply  on  a  point  of  theological  interpretation.  I  have  always 
had  a  prejudice  against  general  confessions,  perhaps  you  may  not 
have.1 — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

March  3 1  he  writes  to  his  sister  : — 

"  J.  H.  N.  is  coming  out  with  a  letter  to  the  Bishop,  which  is 
to  be  a  final  settler.  The  Bishop  has  behaved  extremely 
well,  and  had  some  interviews  with  Pusey.  .  .  ." 

1  A  home  letter  of  the  same  date  (March  17)  gives  first  impressions  on 
reading  the  letter  to  the  V.-C.  in  the  newspapers.  A  sister  writes  :  "  I  was 
entirely  pleased  with  the  printed  letter  to  the  V.-C.  It  struck  me,  on  first 
reading  it,  to  be  exactly  right,  showing  both  confidence  in  bis  cause,  and 
mistrust  of  himself  as  liable  to  error.  There  is  a  Catholic  spirit  of  humility 
in  it  that  one  finds  in  some  books,  and  longs  to  see  practised.  But  I  was 
sorry  that  it  did  not  quite  strike  all  others  in  the  same  light,  especially  H., 
who,  though  no  judge  of  the  question,  is  a  good  one  of  language  ;  and  he 
thought  it  deficient  in  spirit.  He  would  have  liked  something  more  like  a 
retort." 


n6 


Letters  of  the 


J.  B.  M.  to  T.  M. 

Oxford,  April  5, 1841. 
My  dear  Tom, — I  really  hardly  know  where  to  begin  telling 
yon  news.  The  last  and  most  important  is  a  letter  from  the 
Bishop  to  J.  H.  N.,  in  answer  to  published  letter,  thanking  him 
most  warmly,  praising  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  written,  and  says 
he  will  not  have  cause  to  repent  of  having  written  it,  which  is 
a  quiet  way  of  promising  a  continuance  of  his  support  to  the 
views  ;  at  least  this  seems  to  be  the  real  drift  of  his  words.  It 
is  obvious  that  he  would  not  have  done  anything  if  left  to  him- 
self, and  that  he  has  been  poked  up  by  the  Bishop  of  London, 
or  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  doing  what  he  has.  It  is 
generally  thought  that  the  Heads  of  Houses  have  gone  quite  out 
of  their  sphere  in  deciding  on  the  theology  of  a  work ;  they 
are  merely  a  committee  for  practical  business  ;  besides  that, 
some  of  them  are  laymen.  They  rather  feel  this  themselves, 
and  say  now  that  they  condemn  the  logic  of  the  Tract,  not  its 
theology.  Wilson,  of  St.  John's,  has  addressed  a  letter  to 
Churton  of  Brasenose,  against  the  Tract,  and  defending  the 
view  of  the  four  tutors.  It  is  excessively  badly  written  in 
point  of  style ;  one  has  to  read  over  a  sentence  a  dozen  times 
to  see  what  he  means,  and  as  few  people  have  the  patience  to  do 
this,  the  pamphlet  is  not  likely  to  be  very  effective.  He  cites 
two  or  three  passages  from  the  Homilies  rather  strong  on  his 
side  of  the  question,  or  apparently  so,  and  that  is  the  most  for- 
midable thing  he  does.  AVard,  of  Balliol,  is  coming  out  with  an 
answer  to  him,  part  of  which  I  have  seen,  and  think  it  very 
conclusive.  Hook  is  addressing  a  pamphlet  to  the  Bishop  of 
Ripon  on  the  subject  of  the  Tract.  Manning  was  up  the  other 
day,  preaching  before  the  University.  It  was  a  good  sermon, 
but  not  well  delivered,  and  rather  inclining  to  pedantry  in  the 
style  ;  too  polished  and  antithetical  in  the  choice  of  words.  He 
looked  quite  proper  and  archdiaconal,  with  the  strait-cut  coat 
and  the  gentlest  shovel.  He  left  on  the  Monday,  to  go  to 
S.  Wilberforce,  at  Winchester.  Our  President  protested  very 
strongly  against  the  resolution  of  the  Heads  of  Houses,  of 
course,  in  writing  ;  he  never  goes  near  them  himself.    I  should 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  117 


think  he  has  had  some  influence  over  the  Bishop,  as  the  Bishop 
called  on  him  lately  on  the  subject.  .  .  Touching  your  call 
for  an  article  in  the  B.  C. :  since  you  wish  me  to  write,  I 
will  write  something  or  other,  though  the  work  I  have  been 
about  for  a  long  time  is  so  different  from  reviewing,  that  I  shall 
feel  but  awkward  at  anything  in  that  way.  I  should  rather 
prefer  not  taking  a  theological  or  even  an  ecclesiastical 
one.  Your  roof  article  will  quite  establish  your  architectural 
name  here.  Bloxam  let  out  the  secret  of  J.  H.  N.'s  bust  to 
him  the  other  day,1  quite  unintentionally.  It  is  finished  now, 
so  it  is  no  matter  whether  he  knows  it  or  not.  I  rather 
think  of  going  for  a  few  days  to  town  the  middle  of  next  week, 
and  shall  take  an  opportunity  of  seeing  it. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

April  20,  1841. 

My  dear  Anne, — I  heard  from  Mr.  Wayland  the  other  day, 
who  gave  an  extract  from  a  letter  from  Dr.  Wayland  [his 
American  cousin,  President  of  Brown  University,  who  had  been 
lionised  in  Oxford  by  J.  B.  M.],  describing  us  a  most  agreeable, 
intelligent,  gentlemanly  set  of  men  ;  but  regretting  that  the 
advantages  of  the  place  were  so  confined  to  the  aristocracy. 
He  is,  of  course,  perfectly  mistaken  here,  and  judges  from  what 
he  sees  on  a  first  view.  He  meets  with  gentlemen  and  persons 
of  superior  manners,  and  forgets  that  it  is  the  place  which  in 
many  instances  has  made  them  such.  For  my  own  part,  I 
think  Oxford  is  the  most  levelling,  democratical  place  in  the 
kingdom.  There  are  fewer  distinctions,  fewer  grails  here  than 
anywhere.  It  is  of  less  consequence  to  a  man  whether  he  is  a 
man  of  rank  here  than  in  any  other  place  in  the  kingdom.  At 
Hull  and  Manchester,  I  believe,  they  are  very  aristocratic. 

Have  you  got  Palmer's  pamphlet — it  is  rather  tart,  not  to 
say  harsh  and  abusive,  but,  at  the  same  time,  powerful  in  the 
extracts  from  Roman  Catholic  writers,  which  it  brings  against 
Wiseman.  This  was  a  part  of  the  subject  which  the  latter 
rather  shirked,  and,  of  course,  he  was  open  to  a  floor,  as  every 

1  A  bust  by  Westmacott,  now  in  the  possession  of  his  nephew,  Henry 
William  Mozley. 


n8 


Letters  of  the 


one  saw.  The  only  question  was,  who  had  really  enough  to  floor 
him.  Palmer  has,  therefore  he  floors  him.  Of  course,  passages 
without  end  can  be  produced  from  Eoman  Catholic  writers  tend- 
ing to  exalt  the  Virgin,  only  they  say  "  You  do  not  understand 
these ;  they  are  a  different  language  to  us  from  what  they  are 
to  you,  who  are  not  in  our  system — you  are  not  proper  judges." 
This  seems  to  be  Wiseman's  argument.  We  say  words  must 
have  a  meaning,  and  these  words  must  mean  so  and  so,  and 
there  the  controversy  ends.  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  go  further. 
I  thought  Dr.  Wiseman's  an  able  pamphlet,  and  required  an 
answer,  but  should  have  been  better  pleased  with  a  more 
moderate  one.  It  is  not  necessary  to  insult  a  man  on  the  title- 
page  with  a  soi-disant — "  Who  calls  himself  Bishop  of  Melipo- 
tanms."  You  may  tell  Jemima,  Marshall  has  promised  to  send 
me  a  copy  of  the  tune  [for  the  Veni  Creator]  she  means, 
and  she  shall  have  it  for  H.  as  soon  as  I  get  it.  At  the  same 
time,  I  rather  protest  against  using  the  tune  for  an  ordinary 
Psalm.  I  rather  like  the  idea  of  a  tune  peculiar  to  a  certain 
time  and  place,  as  this  I  think  is ;  something  like  the  Miserere 
in  the  Pope's  chapel.  Everything  of  the  sort,  however,  is  pub- 
lished now-a-days,  and  if  one  does  not,  another  does.  So  H.  is 
perhaps  right  in  getting  all  the  good  tunes  she  can. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

J.  B.  M.  to  T.  M. 

Oxford,  May  1 9. 
The  controversy  is  not  yet  over,  as  one  thought.  On  the 
contrary,  a  very  strong  pamphlet  is  coming  out  by  Ward,  which 
I  fully  expect  will  create  a  row,  though  it  is  so  impossible  to 
tell  beforehand  what  will  be  taken  up,  and  what  will  not,  that 
I  will  not  pretend  to  prophesy  on  the  subject.  It  depends  so 
much  on  the  peculiar  state  of  the  public  mind  at  the  time, 
what  will  inflame  it,  and  what  will  not ;  and  the  public  pulse 
is  a  very  difficult  one  to  feel.  He  says  tremendously  strong 
things  against  the  Eeformation  and  the  English  Church,  so  far 
as  it  has  been  influenced  by  it ;  but  there  is  nothing  which 
authorities  can  lay  hold  upon,  as  he  does  not  meddle  with 
formularies.    It  is,  in  short,  a  kind  of  strong  interpretation  of 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


1 19 


No.  XC;  just  as  Pusey's,  which  is  also  coming  out  at  the  same 
time,  is  a  mollifying  one,  proving  that  No.  XC.  says  nothing 
hut  what  our  divines  have  said  before.  Wiseman's  answer  is 
also  just  out,  and,  I  confess,  seems  to  me  very  powerful.  He 
has  greatly  the  advantage  of  Palmer  in  style  and  temper — 
though  quite  as  cutting,  yet  more  quietly  so ;  and  as  Palmer's 
tone  was  certainly  enough  to  provoke  an  opponent,  one  must 
let  a  man  have  his  revenge  ;  at  least  it  is  inrep  avOpcoirov  not  to 
give  tit-for-tat.  "Wood,  he  who  was  Hook's  curate,  was  up  the 
other  day,  and  described  Hook  as  being  bullied  beyond  any- 
thing by  the  Evangelicals  at  Leeds,  so  much  so  as  quite  to  lose 
spirit.  He  had  actually  made  up  his  mind  to  resign  the  living, 
but  the  Archbishop  of  York  positively  refused  to  let  him.  Keble 
was  up  yesterday  giving  his  poetry  lecture.  We  are  beginning 
to  talk  of  the  next  Professor  now,  and  J.  Williams  is  our  man. 
Claughton,  they  say,  will  not  stand  against  him.  Kynaston, 
Master  of  St.  Paul's,  is  the  only  antagonist  as  yet. 

You  are  probably  right  as  to  Carlyle  being  too  late  for  review 
now.  I  confess  I  proposed  the  book  more  for  my  own  conveni- 
ence than  for  that  of  the  British  Critic,  having  read  it  (the  French 
Revolution)  through,  which  is  a  compliment  one  comparatively 
seldom  pays  to  a  book.1  However,  I  find  now  that,  what  with 
having  promised  to  help  Wilson  (one  of  our  Fellows)  in  editing 
the  third  volume  of  Bishop  Andrewes  (i.e.  to  look  over  proofs), 
and  what  with  having  commenced  taking  French  lessons,  I 
have  enough  to  do  for  the  present.  So  I  will  defer  my  valuable 
services  to  the  B.  C. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

His  postscript,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  written  before 
the  days  of  photography. 

"  P.S. — They  have  got  a  most  frightful  portrait  of  I'usey  out, 
Avhich  is  stuck  up  in  all  the  shop-windows.    He  looks  wretched 

1  T.  M.  had  written,  May  5  : — "  About  a  year  ago  I  proposed  to  J.  H.  N. 
to  review  Carlyle,  and,  for  some  reason  or  other,  he  very  expressly  declined, 
saying  he  would  tell  me  why.  I  determined  to  ask  his  reasons,  and  I  think 
I  have,  and  that  he  assigned  the  uncertainty  there  was  about  the  man.  I 
suppose  he  is  an  unbeliever,  and  is  likely  to  say  things  a  great  deal  worse 
than  he  has  yet  said.  Carlyle's  Eevolvtion,  and  other  works,  were  reviewed 
in  the  Dublin,  October  1838,  with  apologies  for  reviewing  the  first  work 
so  long  after  its  publication." 


1 20 


Letters  of  the 


enough  propria  persona,  but  this  portrait  quite  makes  one 
wretched  to  look  at  it — it  presents  such  a  picture  of  intense 
misery,  age,  and  infirmity.  I  will  send  it  to  Harriett  some 
day  for  her  especial  edification.1  There  is  one  of  Sewell,  too, 
much  more  fair ;  in  fact,  really  a  good  likeness,  and  giving 
exactly  his  benignity  and  his  pug  nose  to  a  T.  Kogers  has 
been  heard  from,  from  Venice.  He  is  quite  absorbed  with  the 
beauties  of  the  place. 

An  allusion  to  an  article  in  the  July  number  of  the  British 
Critic  is  a  reason  for  giving  the  following  letter  from  T.  M.  to 
J.  B.  M.  After  some  suggestions  for  the  forthcoming  number, 
he  writes : — 

Cholderton,  July  1,  1841. 
Dear  James, —  .  .  .  Things  have  been  driven  veiy  late  this 
time,  owing  to  my  many  occupations  during  the  quarter,  to 
H.  W.'s  procrastination,  and  to  your  disappointment  [due  to  a 
misunderstood  suggestion].  For  my  own  part  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  not  to  write  anything  myself  this  first  time,  if  I  could  get 
contributors,  but  I  perceive  that  if  I  am  to  have  the  Review  in 
time  I  must  prepare  to  do  much  myself.  Faussett  is  a  mere 
fill-up  in  this  number,  for  that  kind  of  stuff  won't  do  for  the 
staple  of  the  number.  If  people  tell  me  I  have  done  that  article 
too  hastily  and  too  sharply,  I  shall  answer,  Why  did  not  they 
write  for  me  instead  of  obliging  me  to  write  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  ? . . .  You  talked  of  coming  here.  We  are  quite  ready  any 
time,  and  shall  be  all  the  summer — at  least  so  we  hope.  We 
have  now  the  additional  attraction  of  the  church  building, 
which  is  now  about  6  feet  above  ground.    I  shall  require  the 

1  Mrs.  T.  M.'s  letters  at  this  time  show  that  the  strain  was  telling  upon 
the  physique  of  all  deeply  engaged  in  deed  or  in  thought  in  the  controversies 
of  the  time.  "James,"  she  writes,  "  says  J.  II.  N.  was  considered  wonder- 
fully improved  by  his  visit  to  Cholderton.  I  thought  he  did  look  so  miserably 
thin  when  he  came.  It  is  quite  shocking  to  see  people  look  so.  I  do  quite 
agree  with  a  man  who  wrote  to  him  the  other  day,  and  said  the  sight  of  such 
people  '  made  one  sick.''  I  am  sure  it  does — sick  at  heart."  And  again,  writing 
after  the  consecration  of  Ampfield  Church,  April  1841  :  "J.  H.  N.  is 
shockingly  thin,  and,  set  down  on  paper,  would  look  as  old  every  bit  as  that 
awful  representation  of  him.  Mr.  Keble  does  get  so  old  !  Mr.  Williams 
[Isaac]  looked  sadly  ill  " — contiuuing  her  list. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


I  2  I 


breathing-time  afforded  me  by  making  a  two  years'  job  of  it,  as 
by  the  20th  of  August,  when  I  stop  operations,  I  shall  be  on  the 
verge  of  bankruptcy.  At  present  I  don't  see  how  I  am  to 
resume  next  spring,  only  somehow  it  looks  too  natural  and  self- 
growing  a  thing  ever  to  stop.  I  can  as  little  believe  that  the 
trees  about  me  will  not  put  forth  their  leaves  next  spring. — 
Yours  affectionately,  Thos.  Mozley. 

The  Faussett  article  here  mentioned  is  a  review  of  the 
Margaret  Professor's  Lecture  on  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  "chiefly 
with  reference  to  the  views  of  No.  XC.  of  the  Tracts  for  the 
Times,"  delivered  before  the  University,  in  the  Divinity  School, 
Thursday,  June  3,  1841. 

J.  B.  M.  to  T.  M. 

July  13,  1841. 

My  dear  Tom, — Your  squib,  or  whatever  one  is  to  call  it, 
on  the  Margaret  Professor  has  created  a  considerable  sensation 
here.  As  you  would  suppose,  I  have  not  heard  what  is  said  about 
it  among  the  Heads  and  authorities,  though  one  may  easily 
imagine.  It  is  amusing  to  see  the  practical  inference  which 
the  Professor  himself  drew  from  it.  He  went  about  forthwith 
canvassing  for  votes  for  his  re-election,  that  happening  to  be 
just  now.  He  got  a  good  party  together,  some  coming  up  a 
little  distance  from  the  country  to  be  present.  Of  course  they 
found  all  quiet  when  they  got  there.  I  certainly  think  it  one 
of  your  most  successful  and  amusing  articles ;  in  fact,  I  don't 
know  any  that  I  would  place  before  it,  though  at  the  same  time 
it  is  certainly  a  strong  dose,  especially  for  the  Professor.  I 
think  we  cannot  turn  the  poor  man  out  of  house  and  home 
now  that  we  have  laughed  at  him  so  unmercifully,  otherwise 
we  shall  be  punishing  twice  for  the  same  offence,  which  is 
against  equity  .  .  .  The  larking  men  here  are  wonderfully  taken 
with  the  Apologue,  and  propose  that  you  should  edit  it  with 
illustrations  by  Cruikshank. 

Writing  home  he  says  : — "  I  have  heard  only  of  two  persons 
expressing  themselves  strongly  about  the  article.    One  is  Dr. 


122 


Letters  of  the 


Daubeny.  He  took  it  for  Newman's,  and  said,  '  It  was  extra- 
ordinary how  a  person  could  appear  so  amiable  at  one  time  and 
so  much  the  reverse  at  others.' "  To  his  brother,  T.  M.,  he  writes 
a  few  days  later : — "  I  attended  the  Hebdomadal  Board  this 
morning,  where  there  were  two  or  three  words  let  drop  about 
your  article  on  Faussett,  which  showed  people  to  be  consider- 
ably sore.  Bather  a  vulgar  letter,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  has 
appeared  this  week  in  the  Herald,  on  our  side,  in  which  the 
writer  lugs  in  your  Apologue."1 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  September  18,  1841. 
Dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  Bloxam  is  here,  also  C.  Marriott  and 
Copeland.  Pusey  is  also  back  from  Ireland.  I  accompanied 
him  to  his  house  from  the  Cathedral  this  morning,  and  had  a 
long  talk.  He  does  not  like  the  priests,  from  what  he  saw  and 
heard  of  them.  The  Dublin  ones  were  courteous  and  civil,  but 
with  nothing  remarkable  about  them  mentally.  He  said  he 
only  saw  one  who  interested  him  at  all.  .  .  .  Pusey  did  not  go 
about  much,  but  stayed  at  Kingstown.  He  saw  Dr.  Murray,  who 
admitted — the  only  one  who  did — some  faults  in  their  religious 
books ;  all  the  rest  stuck  out  for  their  system,  both  in  doctrine 
and  practice,  to  the  lowest  detail.  He  was  interested,  however, 
with  some  convents  into  which  he  went.  We  are  a  small  party 
in  College  just  now,  and  Oxford  looks  empty  enough.  Newman 
is  at  Littlemore  teaching  the  boys  to  siug,  but  comes  in  to- 
morrow. .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

Oxford,  October  30,  1841. 
We  have  had  a  visit  from  Selwyn,  the  new  Bishop  of  New 
Zealand.  He  came  only  for  a  couple  of  days,  to  see  the  place 
before  his  departure.  We  all  assembled — a  large  party  of  us — 
at  Merton,  to  meet  him  at  breakfast  on  Thursday  at  Hope's, 
who  was  his  entertainer.   Hope  and  Bogers  are  school-fellows  of 

1  For  further  comment  on  the  article  and  its  apologue,  "  Growler  and 
Fido,"  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  Author's  Beminiiscences,  vol.  ii.  p.  245. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


123 


his,  being  nearly  contemporaries  at  Eton ;  so  you  may  suppose 
how  young  he  is  for  a  bishop.  He  is  only,  I  believe,  thirty-two  ; 
but  not  the  worse  for  that — they  want  young  men  and  minds  in 
such  places.  He  has,  however,  plenty  of  sense  and  judgment 
marked  upon  his  face.  It  is  quite  the  situation  he  likes,  and 
has  always  fancied,  and  was,  in  fact,  so  disappointed  at  his 
brother's  refusing  the  Bishopric,  as  he  had  set  his  heart  upon 
accompanying  him,  that  it  occurred  to  the  Bishop  of  London 
that  he  himself  was  the  man.  So  the  place  was  immediately 
offered  and  accepted.  A  large  breakfast  is  just  the  place,  of  all 
others,  where  one  does  not  see  anything  of  a  man.  I  did  just 
see  him,  and  that  was  all,  but  never  heard  him  speak.  He  and 
Hope  were  talking  together,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  whole 
time.  In  fact,  to  talk  to  twenty  people  at  once  is  impossible, 
unless  a  man  gets  on  the  table  and  makes  a  speech.  His  wife 
was  with  him— a  spirited-looking  person,  quite  a  young  lady. 
She  looked  as  if  she  would  follow  her  husband  through  most 
things.  .  .  .  Mr.  Edward  Coleridge  was  with  him ;  one  of  the 
masters  at  Eton,  who  was  master  when  he  was  a  boy;  and 
Coleridge  is  comparatively  a  young  man.  Mr.  Badeley,  a  bar- 
rister from  town,  was  here  also.  He  is  a  man  who  has  come 
down  to  Oxford  several  times  lately,  a  friend  of  Ward's  and 
that  set. 

Keble  has  delivered  his  last  lecture,  which  he  wound  up  with 
a  strong  protest  in  favour  of  the  connection  of  religion  and 
poetry.  People  have  begun  some  time  to  think  of  the  next 
Professor,  and  Garbett's  friends  have  established  a  committee  in 
London,  while  Williams'  have  done  nothing.  From  what  I 
hear,  even  W.'s  friends  say  his  chance  is  not  very  good,  but 
still  sufficiently  so  to  justify  trying.  There  are  several  Colleges 
which  to  a  man  vote  for  Garbett — Brasenose,  New  College,  and 
St.  John's.  We  [at  Magdalen]  shall  divide  about  equally,  but 
perhaps  rather  for  Williams  than  against. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

November  9,  1841. 
Dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  The  new  ordination  of  the  Bishop  of 


I24 


Letters  of  the 


Jerusalem  is  an  event  that  is  making  a  sensation.  Our  Palmer, 
who  has  been  in  Kussia,  and  knows  the  state  of  feeling  with 
respect  to  the  Lutherans  in  the  Greek  Church,  takes  a  very- 
strong  view  of  the  matter,  and  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Archbishop, 
which,  however,  was  not  put  into  his  hands  till  after  the 
ceremony — -not  that  it  would  have  made  the  least  difference 
if  it  had.  The  Archbishop  and  Bishop  of  London  rule  every- 
thing, and  do  whatever  they  please — would  not  hear  anything 
nor  even  communicate  with  the  other  Bishops  on  the  subject. 
The  Bishop  of  Oxford  said  he  had  no  other  information  about  the 
matter  than  the  newspapers  gave.  Palmer  is  writing  a  protest 
entitled,  "  The  Protest  of  William  Palmer,  Deacon,  addressed 
to  all  good  Catholics."  It  will  be  out  in  a  few  days  after  he  has 
sent  proofs  to  the  Archbishop  and  Bishop,  to  correct  misstate- 
ments if  there  should  be  any.  It  is  very  strong  and  very  ably 
done  ;  and,  knowing  the  Greek  Church,  he  can  of  course  speak 
with  confidence.  Newman  is  about  another,  and  I  daresay  there 
will  be  a  more  general  one  in  course  of  time. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

The  election  of  Poetry  Professor  to  succeed  Keble  fell  at  a 
critical  time.  No  one  could  for  a  moment  doubt — it  may  be 
said  that  no  one  did  doubt- — that  Isaac  Williams  was  the  obvious 
candidate,  the  fittest  man  for  the  office ;  but  party  spirit  was 
roused ;  and  rumours  were  afloat,  which,  with  the  majority  of 
electors,  threw  such  a  consideration  entirely  into  the  shade. 
Some  letters  are  given  here  to  show  the  state  of  public  feeling 
at  Oxford  and  elsewhere.  Amongst  the  alarmists,  T.  M.'s  old 
friend,  Mr.  Golightly,  stood  prominently  forward,  and  in  the 
excitement  of  the  moment  certainly  forgot  himself  in  one  flagrant 
instance,  though  time,  that  wondrous  healer,  brought  about 
more  than  a  reconciliation — a  forgetfulness  apparently  on  both 
sides  of  the  old  wrong. 

The  following  letters  allude  to  a  general  denunciation  of  the 
party  in  The  Standard,  in  letters  to  Canon  Faber,  addressed 
to  that  paper  : — 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


125 


J.  B.  M.  to  A.  M. 

December,  1841. 
Dear  Anne, — I  have  just  time  to  write  half  a  line. 
Golightly's  letter  has  of  course  made  a  great  stir.  It  seems 
to  be  agreed  that  though  the  letter,  as  a  whole,  is  a  great 
floor  on  his  part  (as  producing  no  sort  of  evidence,  even  in  the 
strongest  cases,  for  quantities  of  people  go  to  Oscot,  and  in 
Tom's  case,  not  even  pretending  to  produce  evidence,  but  only 
saying  "I  think  I  have  ground  for  believing"),  yet  that  one  or 
two  awkward  facts  are  let  out — that  is,  that  J.  H.  N.  and 
Pusey  differ  as  to  Eomanism,  and  that  one  was  more  disposed 
to  think  more  favourably  of  Eome  and  more  leniently  of  its 
faults  than  the  other.  This  is,  of  course,  a  fact  which  we  all 
know  here,  and  which  does  not  at  all  prevent  the  two  acting 
in  concert  together;  but  this  fact  being  put  forward  in  that 
summary  way  may  tend  to  create  an  alarm,  and  destroy  that 
confidence  in  our  party  which  unity  alone  can  give.  But  this 
depends  on  how  the  public  see  it  and  follow  it  up.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

T.  M.'s  letter  to  James  on  the  subject  is  short  and  charac- 
teristic : — 

T.  M.  to  J.  B.  M. 

Cholderton,  December  3,  1841. 
.  .  .  Golightly's  letter  is  beautiful.  I  don't  know  which  most 
to  admire — the  negative  or  the  positive  part  of  it.  I  am  chiefly 
amused  at  the  way  G.  has  tantalised  poor  Faber's  (Canon  of 
Durham)  curiosity — ten  new  names  as  yet  not  blown  upon — a 
regular  Jesuit's  College  was  the  least  I  expected,  when  G.  flings 
at  him  the  old  story  of  British  Critic  and  the  opinions  of  highly 
respectable  friends,  dignitaries  in  the  Church,  and  Protestant 
bishops.  As  I  lay  in  bed  this  morning,  I  thought  over  30  pages 
of  jokes  at  G.'s  expense,  but  I  suppose  it  is  best  to  hold  one's 
tongue. — Yours  affectionately,  Thos.  Mozley. 

The  cpuestion  of  the  Poetry  Professor  to  succeed  Keble  never 
came  to  the  poll,  but  was  settled  by  a  comparison  of  votes. 


Letters  of  the 


Isaac  Williams'  party  were  so  prepared  for  defeat  that  J.  B.  M. 
gives  the  history  in  his  home  letter  in  the  spirit  of  making  the 
best  of  it. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  January  23,  1842. 
People  seem,  on  the  whole,  more  satisfied  than  I  expected 
with  the  conclusion  the  thing  has  come  to,  and  think  that  with 
all  the  difficulties  Williams'  committee  here  and  in  London  had 
to  encounter  they  have  done  pretty  well.    The  minority  of  623 
was  a  great  blow  to  the  opposite  side,  who  had  been  counting 
on  a  majority  of  3  to  1.  .  .  .    It  seems  to  be  generally  thought 
that  the  Heads  are  strongly  disposed  to  peace,  and  afraid  to  run 
any  risk.    The  Master  of  Balliol  gives  out  that  he  considers 
Garbett  the  most  improper  man  in  the  University  for  the  office. 
The  Dean  of  Ch.  Ch.  is  neutral,  the  Warden  of  All  Souls  very 
strong  for  Williams,  to  which,  if  we  add  Bichards  of  Exeter 
and  the  President  of  Trinity,  we  have  a  good  infusion  at  any 
rate  of  harmless  materials  in  the  Hebdomadal  Board.  The 
comparison  of  votes  was  a  kind  of  half  measure  for  which  we 
are  indebted  to  the  President  of  Trinity — I  mean  as  opposed  to 
a  mere  withdrawal  sub  sihntio.    The  Bishop  of  Oxford  (Bagot) 
was  persuaded  to  write  several  strong  letters,  urging  a  with- 
drawal, and  among  the  rest  a  formal  one  to  the  London  com- 
mittee.   The  latter,  who  come  out  of  the  scrape  better  than  I 
expected,  were  decidedly  against  it,  but  at  the  same  time 
disliked  the  idea  of  opposing  Episcopal  influence,  and  this  was 
almost  the  view  of  the  Fellows  of  Trinity.    Besides  that,  they 
were  afraid  that  the  known  wishes  of  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
might  actually  prevent  many  voters  coming  up.    In  fact,  they 
would  have  conceded  the  point  most  reluctantly  had  not  the 
President  been  obstinate,  and  refused  his  consent  to  the 
acknowledgment  of  Episcopal  interference ;  about  which,  I 
conjecture,  he  has  some  strong  antiquarian  theory  as  to  the 
privileges  of  the  University  in  that  respect.    So,  as  a  middle 
course,  something  short  of  obeying  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  and 
also  letting  the  world  know  as  well  as  they  could  without  a 
poll  their  real  number,  they  acquiesced  in  a  comparison  of  votes. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


127 


I  see  The  Standard  says  that  Dr.  Gilbert  produced  vouchers  for 
his  921  votes,  whereas  W.'s  623  were  certain  and  probable  ones 
— all  that  they  had  any  chance  at  all  of.  That  is  simply  a  lie, 
and  Haddan's  scrupulous  honesty  is  the  sole  cause  of  the 
report  being  spread.  .  .  .  The  Principal  of  Brasenose,  rather 
disgusted  I  suppose  at  such  an  imposing  minority,  commenced 
with  saying  something  to  the  effect  that  if  they  (Garbett's  side) 
were  at  liberty  to  reckon  up  all  their  chances  they  might  swell 
out  their  list  indefinitely.  But  he  stuck  short  in  the  middle  of 
his  speech,  and  on  Haddan's  requesting  to  know  whether  the  921 
was  the  gross  number  to  be  opposed  to  the  623  or  a  picked  list 
to  be  opposed  to  the  500,  Grove,  a  Fellow  of  Brasenose,  admitted 
at  once  that  it  was  composed  in  exactly  the  same  way  that  the 
623  was.  .  .  .  The  Principal  of  Brasenose,  being  a  sharp  man  in 
such  cases,  .  .  .  instantly  closed  with  the  921  to  623,  and  so  the 
affair  ended.  ...  I  omitted  to  say  that  the  London  committee 
had  made  a  bargain  with  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  and  made  him 
write  a  letter  expressly  stating  that  his  sole  ground  was  the 
peace  of  the  Church,  and  even  sent  back  his  first  letter  to  be 
corrected,  but  this  would  have  been  a  poor  compensation  for  a 
withdrawal  sub  silentio,  and  we  are  more  indebted  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  Trinity,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  hear,  than  to 
either  of  our  committees  on  this  matter. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  January  27, 1842. 
There  is  no  more  news  as  to  the  Poetry  Professorship 
business.  But  there  is  a  report  that  Gilbert  and  the  Bishop 
of  Oxford  are  to  exchange  Bishoprics,  in  order  that  we  may 
have  a  resident  Bishop  to  keep  us  in  order.  This  is  nothing 
more,  however,  than  a  report.  In  so  far  as  it  would  look  like  a 
job  to  enable  Gilbert  to  keep  his  Principalship,  it  does  not 
seem  a  likely  scheme  for  Sir  R.  Peel,  though,  as  a  check  upon 
the  movement  here,  it  might  be  put  in  a  popular  point  of  view  to 
the  public.  Peel  told  Lord  Ashley  the  other  day  that  he  need  not 
be  afraid  of  the  Oxford  party,  for  he  should  take  care  they  got 
into  no  preferment  while  he  was  in  office. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 


128 


Letters  of  the 


In  March  of  this  year  J.  B.  M.  was  one  of  a  deputation  to 
the  Queen,  which  after  the  ceremony  dined  at  Apsley  House. 

To  his  Sistek. 

Morley's  Hotel,  March  19,  1842. 
.  .  .  The  company  besides  the  deputation,  were  the  two 
Archbishops,  Lord  Eedesdale,  the  two  members  of  the  Uni- 
versity, Sir  H.  Halford,  Lord  Devon,  Sir  C.  Wetherell,  etc.  The 
table  was  very  wide,  and  round  at  the  ends,  each  accommodating 
four  or  five.  The  Duke  sat  in  the  middle,  with  the  Archbishops 
on  each  side.  It  was  curious  to  watch  the  progress  of  con- 
versation between  them,  though  one  was  such  a  long  way  off 
that  one  could  only  see.  The  Archbishop  of  York  was  the 
favourite  of  the  two,  but  as  his  line  seemed  to  be  only  telling 
anecdotes,  when  he  had  finished  one,  he  had  nothing  more  to 
say,  and  a  dead  pause  of  some  five  minutes  would  ensue.  The 
Duke  seemed  either  not  to  have  the  power,  or  never  to  give 
himself  the  trouble  of  taking  up  the  thread  of  any  discourse, 
and  seemed  wholly  dependent  on  what  people  chose  to  say  to 
him.  His  whole  interest  is  taken  up  in  Parliament,  and  as 
soon  as  Lord  Eedesdale  came,  he  immediately  began  to  ask  about 
what  was  going  on.  He  was  dressed  in  plain  full  dress,  only 
short  breeches,  with  the  garter  and  the  blue  scarf  round  his 
shoulders  under  the  coat.  An  ordinary  blue  dress-coat  with 
brass  embossed  buttons,  and  a  silk  shawl  waistcoat  completed 
his  attire.  He  seemed  to  enjoy  himself  most  upon  the  ottoman 
after  leaving  the  dining-room,  with  Sir  H.  Halford  prosing 
things  into  his  ear,  which  had  the  effect  of  a  gentle  stimulus, 
and  one  heard  every  now  and  then,  Ah,  Yes,  Very  well,  and  so 
on.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  simplicity  of  his  manner,  which 
is  of  that  kind  that  must  have  been  acquired  by  never  having 
cared  about  pleasing  people,  and  being  acceptable  or  popular. 
He  treats  complete  strangers  with  the  most  utter  and  complete 
strangeness,  but  his  manner  to  Dr.  Bliss,  who  had  seen  some- 
thing of  him,  showed  that  he  acquired  a  liking  for  people  by 
knowing  them,  and  that  his  courtesy  advanced  in  proportion  to 
his  acquaintance  with  the  man,  which  is  better  than  the 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


1 29 


inverse  ratio,  as  the  more  fashionable  system  is  apt  to  be.  .  .  . 
Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

After  a  visit  to  his  brother  Arthur,  then  one  of  the  Masters 
of  King  Edward's  School,  Birmingham,  he  writes  : — 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  April  12,  1842. 
Arthur  gave  a  dinner  party  on  Saturday,  where  were  Mr. 
Oldham,  and  most  of  the  masters  of  the  school.  They  were 
a  pleasant  set  of  men,  very  like  College  society,  and  keeping 
up  that  style.  It  is  a  pity  they  have  not  rooms  within  the 
walls  of  the  school,  instead  of  being  dispersed  through  the 
town ;  it  would  make  them  quite  a  Collegiate  body. 

On  Sunday  he  attended  service  at  St.  Thomas's  (Bishop 
Byder's)  Church,  Birmingham,  and  heard  a  sermon  from  Mr. 
Collinson,  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 

What  do  you  think  of  this  notice  being  given  out  from  the 
reading-desk  between  prayers  and  sermon  ? 

"  The  Bev.  Martin  Wilson  Boy,  curate  of  St.  Martin's,  will 
re-deliver,  by  special  request,  his  introductory  lecture,  proving 
the  coincidence  between  Puseyism  and  Boman  Catholicism,  in 
St.  James's  Church,  Ashsted,  on  Tuesday  next." 

Now,  one  can  stand  a  good  deal  in  this  way,  because  one  has 
had  a  good  deal  of  practice,  but  this  was  rather  too  bad.  So  after 
service  I  went  up  to  the  clerk,  as  he  was  proceeding  to  the 
vestry  (not  wishing  to  come  in  contact  with  the  clergymen 
themselves),  and  asked  for  a  copy  of  the  notice.  He  said  there 
was  no  vjrittcn  notice,  but  he  would  mention  it  to  them — so  at 
last  I  found  myself  ushered  into  the  vestry,  where  I  made 
known  my  request,  and  wrote  out  at  their  dictation  the  notice 
which  had  been  given.  When  we  came  to  that  part  of  it,  Mr. 
Collinson  said,  '  Tractarianism,1  etc.,  but  the  other,  Mr.  Wheeler, 
admitted  that  he  said  '  Puseyism.'  This  constituted  the  whole 
of  the  scene.  I  made  my  bow  and  retired,  I  shall  show  the 
notice  to  Busey  to-morrow  when  he  conies  back,  and  suggest 

1 


Letters  of  the 


his  writing  to  the  Bishop  of  Worcester  about  it.1  The  Bishop 
can  scarcely  avoid  taking  notice  of  such  a  flagrant  indecency 
when  put  before  him.  Mr.  Lee  was  enormously  disgusted  with 
the  notice  in  St.  Martin's  the  Sunday  before,  where  the  word 
was  "  Tractarianism,"  but  the  use  of  such  a  mere  piece  of  slang 
as  "  Puseyism,"  from  the  reading-desk,  happily  brings  the  matter 
to  a  head.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  May  22, 1842. 

My  dear  Anne, — You  have  probably  heard  before  now  from 
Cholderton  all  about  their  visit  here.  .  .  .  Mr.  Bellasis,  from 
London,  came  for  a  day,  on  purpose  to  see  Tom,  and  he  and 
Harriett  had  some  pleasant  talk.  He  describes  the  body  of 
lawyers  in  town  as  changing  rapidly ;  and  really  holds  out  a 
prospect  of  the  old  union  between  the  legal  and  ecclesiastical 
bodies  being  revived.  ...  As  a  dernier  resource,  the  Exeter  Hall 
gentlemen  are  going  to  send  down  some  of  their  set,  with  Mr. 
M'Ghee  at  their  head,  to  vituperate  in  the  Town-hall  here,  and 
seem  to  suppose  that  they  will  really  produce  some  effect  upon 
the  state  of  opinion  here.  Tom  had  a  long  talk  with  Pusey, 
chiefly  about  the  British  Critic,  the  latter  recommending  a  few 
modifications  of  expression  which  had  occurred  there.  The  inter- 
view seemed  to  have  been  attended  with  some  slight  uneasiness 
to  Tom,  as  I  could  tell  from  his  manner  afterwards,  he  not  being 
yet  used  to  take  the  passive  side  in  criticism.  Entre  nous,  I 
don't  think  it  will  do  him  any  harm,  and,  to  confess  the  truth, 
I  had  rather  a  malicious  pleasure  in  seeing  it. 

The  Bishop  (Bagot)  gives  his  long-delayed  charge  in  St. 
Mary's  to-morrow, which  will  be  heard  with  considerable  interest. 
He  has  been  dreading  it  for  the  last  couple  of  years,  and  ought 
to  have  delivered  it  long  ago.  They  say  he  has  a  promise  of 
the  next  translation,  I  suppose  to  York,  and  that  he  thinks  he 
has  had  enough  of  care  and  responsibility  in  these  questions 
lying  upon  his  shoulders,  and  that  he  can  claim  fairly  a  little 
rest.  It  will  be  a  perilous  thing  his  going  away — that  is,  for  us. 

1  In  the  Illustrated  News  of  this  date  there  occurs  a  notice  that  the 
Bishop  of  Worcester  had  forbidden  the  use  of  the  word  "  Puseyism "  in 
church. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


Archdeacon  [S.]  Wilberforce  preached,  they  say,  a  very  politic 
sermon  before  the  Bishop  the  other  day,  and  worthy  a  can- 
didate for  the  episcopal  honours.  He  attended  the  conference 
at  Winchester  between  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  Mr.  Nicholson  (on 
the  subject  of  the  former's  sermon  on  renewing  discipline),  and 
seemed  greatly  perplexed  what  side  to  take,  though  he  inclined 
of  course  towards  the  Low  Church.  This  see-saw  state  must 
be  a  most  difficult  and  agitating  one  to  keep  up,  and  he  will 
require  a  bishopric  for  the  benefit  of  his  health  before  long,  if 
for  no  other  reason.  The  last  joke  from  London  is,  that  the 
two  rival  Tablets  (there  are  two  now — one  Lord  Shrewsbury 
and  Wiseman's,  the  other  the  old  O'Connellite  one)  station  men 
with  bludgeons  at  the  Post-Office  hole,  to  prevent  each  other 
sending  off  their  respective  papers. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

In  the  collection  from  which  these  letters  are  taken,  there  is 
no  mention  of  the  action  of  Archdeacon  Samuel  Wilberforce,  in 
the  recent  election  for  the  Poetry  Professorship,  of  which  the 
details  are  given  in  his  Life ;  but  of  course  the  tone  towards 
him  in  the  preceding  letter  is  due  to  the  part  he  took  on  that 
occasion.  The  following  letter  relates  to  the  attempt  by  the 
Heads  of  Houses,  who  had  appointed  Dr.  Hampden  chairman 
of  the  new  Theological  Board,  to  free  him  from  the  censure 
passed  in  1836,  on  his  being  appointed  Begius  Professor.  His 
sister  was  then  on  a  visit  at  Stow-Langtoft. 

Oxfoed,  May  31. 
The  Convocation  is  on  Tuesday,  June  7,  so  Mr.  Bickards 
should  leave  on  the  Monday  morning.  You  see  I  take  for  granted 
he  is  coming.  Everybody  who  wishes  any  remnant  of  orthodoxy 
to  remain  amongst  us  should  come,  and  settle  the  matter  once  for 
all.  The  original  statute  against  Hampden  was  a  miserable  thing, 
in  this  point  of  view,  leaving  it  open  to  be  removed  whenever 
an  Hebdomadal  Board  chose  to  liberalise.  The  censure  ought 
to  have  been  passed  on  the  unsound  propositions,  not  on  the 
man,  and  then  they  could  not  have  been  retracted.    We  are 


1 3  2  Letters  of  the 

going  on  very  satisfactorily.  To-day  this  circular  is  sent  down 
to  all  the  non-resident  members  of  Convocation  of  every  College. 
You  cannot  imagine  the  state  of  bustle  and  activity  we  have 
been  in.  The  last  week  has  been  a  complete  dream — of  inter- 
minable plannings,  devisings,  machinatings,  talkings,  walkings, 
writings,  printings,  letters  for  the  post,  wafers,  sealing-wax, 
etc.  However,  the  work  is  pretty  near  over  now.  In  fact, 
when  the  circulars  are  fairly  launched,  there  is  nothing  more 
to  do.  The  new  statute  is  expected  to  be  thrown  out  by  a 
large  majority.  Nobody  sticks  up  a  moment  for  the  Heads 
of  Houses.  Eespecting  the  point  of  inconsistency,  tell  Mr. 
Eickards  that  the  statute  of  1836  was  generally  considered  only 
in  the  light  of  a  stigma 1 — not  as  depriving  him  of  those  par- 
ticular functions.  That  a  man  holding  his  opinions  should  have 
been  allowed  to  go  on  lecturing  and  virtually  exercising  every 
position  of  his  office,  was  indeed,  and  is,  a  most  gross  incon- 
sistency. The  statute  just  passed  is  only  a  slight  addition  to 
the  great  and  acknowledged  and  systematic  inconsistency.  I 
voted  myself  against  the  measure  upon  that  very  ground — i.e. 
against  Hampden  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  to  have  raised  a  hue- 
and-cry  would  have  been  so  apparently  harsh  and  personal, 
that  I  am  not  surprised  at  the  silence  of  men.  You  could  not 
have  raised  a  sufficient  opposition  without  combining  and 
making  a  noise  ;  and  though  little  additions  to  any  wrong  state 
of  things  are  not  to  be  despised,  still,  compared  with  the  huge 
and  monstrous  inconsistency  of  heretical  Professors  allowed  to 
lecture  in  an  orthodox  University,  it  was  not  much,  and  it 
would,  in  my  opinion,  have  been  straining  at  a  gnat  to  have 
raised  a  formal  war  upon  it. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

1  See  article,  "  New  Defenders  of  the  Faith,"  in  the  British  Critic,  Oct. 
1S42  : — "  Against  the  plain  state  of  the  case  then — that  Dr.  Hampden  did 
not  retract ;  that  Dr.  Hampden  said  he  did  not  retract  ;  that  they  said  Dr. 
Hampden  ought  to  retract — what  have  they  to  set  off  as  a  counterbalance  ? 
We  lack  some  very  powerful  ground,  if  this  be  possible,  when  the  other 
side  has  swallowed  up  all.  What  is  it?  They  'felt  Dr.  Hampden  was, 
theologically,  not  the  same  man  in  1842  that  he  was  in  1836.'  "  "  As  the 
Regius  Professor  and  Head  of  St.  Mary  Hall  mixed  more  and  more  in 
society  with  his  fellow  Heads,  the  feeling  of  class  would  prevail,  and  the 
dignitary  supersede  and  cover  the  latitudiuarian,"  etc.    Pages  431-435. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


i33 


In  reply  to  his  sister's  notice  of  his  article  in  the  British 
Critic,  on  "  The  Development  of  the  Church  in  the  Seventeenth 
Century,"  he  writes  :— 

Oxford,  July  9, 1842. 
I  am  sorry  any  part  of  my  article  seems  hard  upon  our 
old  divines.  If  it  is  so,  it  is  owing  entirely  to  my  own  bung- 
ling ;  I  meant  to  be  quite  otherwise,  as  you  yourself  know  my 
sentiments  to  be.  I  certainly  think  they,  in  common  with  their 
E.  C.  opponents,  were  much  harsher  in  their  language  than 
they  needed  to  be.  It  was  an  age  of  controversy,  and  every- 
body used  strong  terms.  The  B.  Catholics  were  every  bit  as 
bad,  if  not  worse.  I  certainly  would  wish  to  separate,  for  this 
reason,  their  real  spirit  from  their  controversial  phraseology. 
Nor  does  this  appear  a  refined  distinction  to  draw,  but  one 
which  one  is  making  constantly  in  judging  of  historical  charac- 
ters or  parties.  This  is  positively  the  only  exception  I  make 
against  them  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  claim  for  them  every 
noble  and  catholic  feeling,  and  consider  them  the  great  defenders 
of  our  Church,  to  whom  we  owe  everything.  I  confess,  how- 
ever, I  should  not  rank  the  Eeformers  among  these  standard 
divines,  who  seem  indeed  to  have  been  a  decided  reaction  upon 
them,  i.e.  very  much  more  High  Church.  Compare  Laud  and 
Jewel.    No  time  for  more  theology. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Best  remembrances  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eickards. 

J.  B.  M.  to  T.  M. 

Oxford,  November  11,  1842. 
My  dear  Tom, — .  .  .  Has  Oakeley  sent  you  the  circular  about 
the  Welsh  Bishoprics  ?    They  say  there  is  a  chance  of  keeping 
them  if  something  is  done.  ...  I  have  hardly  been  able  to  show 

any  civility  to  young  .    There  is  something  very  pleasing 

about  him,  though  he  has  not  fallen  into  the  Oxford  mould. 
Perhaps  none  the  worse  for  that ;  but  Eton  and  Harrow,  etc., 
send  such  mature  and  formed  gentlemen  now-a-days  up  to  the 
University  (absurdly  so,  I  think),  that  one  notices  deficiency  of 


134 


Letters  of  the 


manner  and  rusticity,  however  slight.  Hampden  and  Macmullen 
are  keeping  up  the  war,  M.  refusing  to  defend  the  heretical 
propositions  which  H.  sent  him  for  his  B.D.  exercises,  and 
claiming  the  right  to  choose  his  own,  which  he  has  by  statute, 
and  H.  resisting.  The  Vice-Chancellor  has  been  applied  to,  and 
documents  examined.  Vaughan  Thomas  assists  M.,  who  is 
certain  to  gain  his  point. 

Do  you  know  the  Provost  has  refused  Arthur  testimonials, 
except  on  the  condition  of  rejecting1  No.  XC.  I  saw  the 
letter  (a  copy  of  which  A.  sent  me).  .  .  .  He  talks  about  we 
and  us,  as  if  he  were  the  College.  J.  H.  N.  suggested  a  short 
answer,  that  Arthur  accepted  the  Articles  in  the  sense  of  Con- 
vocation of  1562;  of  course  it  will  come  to  nothing,  and 
Arthur  must  wait  another  year,  when  he  will  be  out  of  the 
Provost's  power. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — I  enclose  the  Provost's  letter. 

Peovost's  Letter  to  Arthur. 

My  dear  Sir, — Before  we  can  send  you  the  testimonial  you 
desire,  as  we  have  seen  nothing  of  you  for  a  long  time,  I  must 
ask  whether  you  have  adopted  any  new  opinions  or  new  methods 
of  interpreting  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  "Whether  you  would 
interpret  those,  for  instance,  which  relate  to  the  controversy 
between  the  Churches  of  England  and  Pome,  not  according  to 
the  intentions  of  those  who  framed  them,  but  according  to  some 
supposed  view  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  so,  perhaps,  very 
nearly  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  Pome  herself — con- 
sidering, for  example,  Ecumenical  Councils  infallible,  and  not 
objecting  to  the  Mass,  or  believing  in  the  intercession  of  saints. 

I  trust  I  shall  hear  you  have  not  adopted  any  opinion  of  this 
kind ;  but  to  sign  a  complete  testimonial  for  orders  requires  a 
good  deal  more  knowledge  of  the  person  who  desires  them,  than 
we  can  possibly  have  of  you  without  this  inquiry,  after  so  long 
an  absence  from  Oxford. — I  am  always,  my  dear  Sir,  yours  very 
faithfully,  Edward  Hawkins. 

A.  Mozley,  Esq. 

1  My  brother  Arthur  took  his  B.A.  degree  Christmas  1840,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozky,  D.D. 


135 


To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  24,  1842. 

What  do  you  think  of  the  Provost  sending  Arthur's  testi- 
monials after  all  ? 

Mr.  Caswell,  the  Mormonite,  has  been  here  collecting  books 
for  his  College  in  America.  Mormonism  was,  of  course,  the 
subject,  and  one  he  is  never  tired  of  opening  out.  His  deaf- 
ness prevents  him  from  entering  into  conversation  strictly 
speaking,  so  he  is  compelled  to  hold  forth  ;  not  that  he  is  averse 
at  all  to  the  advantage  thus  derived  from  his  infirmity.  His 
facts  are  certainly  most  curious,  and  he  is  so  dry  and  quaint — 
so  American  with  all  his  Churchmanship.  He  screws  up  his 
mouth  in  such  a  way,  as  he  winds  up  a  good  story.  Knaves 
are  especially  delightful  to  him,  and  that  constitutes  the  great 
charm  of  the  Mormonite  subject.  He  considers  Smith  the 
greatest  scamp  that  ever  lived,  and  himself,  of  course,  privileged 
in  proportion  in  the  acquaintance  he  has  formed  with  him. 
He  breakfasted  with  me  this  morning,  and  entertained  the 
party  considerably.  He  is  evidently  a  person  of  thorough 
business-like  habits,  and  most  American  spirit  of  adventure ; 
cares  nothing  for  journeys.  He  goes  to  Cambridge  in  a  day  or 
two. 

The  Heads  of  Houses  are  going  to  do  a  good  thing  in  peti- 
tioning for  the  Welsh  Bishoprics.  This  is  an  improvement 
on  their  ordinary  proceedings,  as  the  Church  Commission  is  a 
child  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel's. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  December  10,  1842. 
I  send  you  Palmer's  and  Ward's  letters,  which  tell  their 
own  history.  People  are  afraid  that  the  former  will  do  harm 
from  its  strength  of  language  and  anathemas.  Palmer  has  a 
penchant  for  anathematising  ;  he  has  been  longing  to  do  it  for 
some  time,  and  this  was  too  favourable  an  opportunity  to  resist. 
Ward  does  not  get  out  of  the  scrape  very  well ;  and  his  asser- 
tion about  J.  H.  N.  is  too  like  a  puff — incomparably  greater,  as 
if  he  was  puffing  off  some  quack  medicine.    Things  are  looking 


136 


Letters  of  the 


as  favourable  as  one  could  expect ;  whatever  be  the  event  of 
the  contest,  we  shall  show  such  strength  as  will  convince  the 
world  that  we  are  not  a  mere  clique.    J.  H.  N.  is  disquieted  at 

 's  proceedings  [alluding  to  some  extreme  proceedings 

by  a  young  High  Church  incumbent].  He  is  a  foolish  fellow, 
and  ought  to  be  floored ;  not  but  that  his  seniors  have  set  him 
the  example,  there  is  no  denying. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

TO  HIS  SlSTEK. 

Oxford,  December  20,  1842. 
There  is  a  quondam  member  of  the  College  visiting  us  just 
now,  namely,  Sibthorpe  [who  had  recently  gone  over  to  Borne] ; 
he  is  with  Bloxam,  and  dines  with  the  President  to-day.  I  have 
not  seen  him,  and  probably  shall  not ;  though,  I  believe,  he  is 
prepared  to  receive  callers.  I  cannot  say,  for  my  own  part, 
that  I  have  any  great  respect  either  for  his  character  or  his 
conduct,  and,  as  I  do  not  know  much  of  him,  shall  not  think  it 
necessary  to  run  any  chance  of  an  awkward  interview.  The 
President  always  was  fond  of  him,  though  how  far  it  arose 
from  a  partiality  for  old  families  that  had  tenanted  the  College, 
as  Sibthorpe's,  from  time  immemorial,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
It  is  supposed  that  if  Sibthorpe  had  not  resigned,  it  would  have 
been  a  long  time  before  the  President  could  have  brought  him- 
self to  cross  his  name  out.  It  is  rather  curious  that  S.'s  fall 
from  his  carriage  seems  likely,  from  what  one  hears,  to  have 
the  effect  of  withdrawing  him  from  a  public  and  important 
position  among  the  Boman  Catholics.  They  say  his  head  has 
been  so  much  affected  by  it,  that  preaching  will  be  a  great 
exertion.  Bloxam  thinks  that  half  from  this,  and  half  from  not 
liking  his  new  associates  particularly,  he  will  probably  retire 
into  private  life.  I  hear  Wiseman  is  much  disappointed  at  the 
small  chances  of  our  all  coming  over.  Mr.  Phillips  had  misled 
him  by  extravagant  accounts. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

Late  in  1842,  a  Magdalen  friend  had  gone  over  to  Borne. 
J.  B.  M.  writes  to  his  sister  : — 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


137 


February  25,  1843. 
I  saw  a  letter  from  B.  S.  the  other  day,  from  Oscot.  It  did 
not  seem  to  me  written  in  spirits,  and  he  seemed  to  have 
nothing  to  say  about  the  persons  there ;  all  is  system  and 
routine,  going  on  and  on  like  a  machine.  I  fancy  there  are 
one  or  two  clever  interesting  men  there,  who  probably  would 
not  treat  S.  with  any  particular  attention  after  they  had  got  him. 
Wiseman,  I  understand,  is  rather  a  don.  The  rest  are  mere 
second-rate  teachers  in  the  school.  They  had  been  having  a 
burial,  and  the  quantity  of  Dies  ircc  seemed  to  have  oppressed 
poor  B.  S.  not  a  little. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  25,  1843. 
My  dear  Anne, — I  have  got  over  my  labours1  for  the 
British  Critic,  I  am  happy  to  say,  although  one  is  rather  sorry 
at  the  same  time  to  dismiss  a  regular  employment  of  some 
months'  reading  and  writing.  Ward  intimated  to  me  yester- 
day that  Tom  could  write  a  strong  article  when  he  chose,  not 
referring  perhaps  to  any  recent  communication,  but  some  time 
back.  .  .  .  Ward  is  not  a  little  touchy  about  his  compositions 
in  the  British  Critic.  But  I  know  nothing  about  it.  I  should 
say  that  most  of  Ward's  articles  were  obnoxious  to  pretty 
strong  criticisms.  I  hope  J.  H.  N.'s  criticism  of  my  own, 
last  October,2  has  done  some  good,  and  made  the  present 
article  a  better  arranged  affair  than  that. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

April  6,  1843. 

My  dear  Anne, — Thank  you  very  sincerely  for  your  critical 
epistle.  I  see  you  know  how  to  please  an  unfortunate  author 
who  wants  a  little  bit  of  praise  after  the  termination  of  his 
labours.  .  .  .  The  fact  is,  history  must  be  pictorial,  or  even 
theatrical  to  a  certain  extent,  in  order  to  effect  its  object.  It 

1  "Strafford." 

2  "Development  of  the  Church  in  the  Seventeenth  Century." 


138 


Letters  of  the 


is  all  very  fine  talking  about  simple  facts  and  solid  narrative, 
and  so  on ;  you  must  have  something  more  than  solidity  to 
give  a  true  idea  even  of  the  facts  themselves.  I  should  like  to 
know  the  parts  that  you  thought  obscure.  I  have  one  or  two 
in  my  eye.  .  .  .  Tom  has  sent  me  a  note,  very  complimentary, 
but  intimating  that  my  hero  must  be  considered,  after  all,  a 
despotic  character,  and  that  despotism  rebounds  upon  itself. 
He  says  this  as  if  it  was  half  his  own  opinion,  half  what  others 
would  say.  I  confess  I  tried  to  make  it  clear  that  despotism 
(monarchy,  that  is)  was  constitutional  then,  and  that  a  man 
might  stick  up  for  it,  as  he  might  for  anything  else  established. 
Was  this  clear  to  you — i.e.  my  historical  view  on  the  subject  ? 
My  view,  I  say — but  really  I  thought  every  person  except 
strongly  prejudiced  Liberals  acknowledged  it. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

In  the  May  of  1843  he  was  much  occupied  with  the  Welsh 
Bishoprics,  the  Church  Commission  being  about  to  bring  in  a 
bill  for  the  union  of  the  two  Sees  of  St.  Asaph  and  Bangor, 
and  the  appropriation  of  the  funds  of  the  suppressed  bishopric 
to  other  Church  purposes.1  Against  this  measure  J.  B.  M. 
used  his  pen  with  effect,  through  such  means  as  offered  them- 
selves. A  packet  of  letters  remains  addressed  to  him  from  the 
Temple,  by  Mr.  E.  Badeley,  himself  very  energetic  in  the  cause 
and  in  communication  with  the  leading  opponents  of  the  bill. 
His  letters  at  first  are  not  hopeful.    He  writes  to  J.  B.  M. : — 

Temple,  May  6,  1843. 
My  dear  Mozley, —  ...  I  saw  the  Bishop  of  Bangor  on 
Sunday,  and  from  him  I  learnt  that  Lord  Powis  had  had  an- 

1  "It  is  not  too  well  known  that,  among  the  recommendations  of  the 
Ecclesiatical  Coniinissioners  for  England  and  Wales,  which  form  the  sub- 
stance of  the  celebrated  Act  of  6  and  7  Will.  rv.  c.  77,  is  one  which  provides 
for  the  union  of  these  two  time-honoured  bishoprics,  as  they  are  happily 
termed  in  a  document  now  lying  before  us ;  in  other  words,  for  the  sup- 
pression of  one  of  them  upon  the  first  vacancy,  presuming,  of  course,  that  the 
survivor  agrees  to  undertake  the  additional  responsibility.  Nothing  is  required 
but  an  Order  of  the  Queen  in  Council  to  give  effect  to  this  calamitous  pro- 
vision which  has  now  become  part  and  parcel  of  the  law  of  the  land,  subject 
only  to  the  aforesaid  condition." — British  Critic,  vol.  xxxiii.  p.  237.   Jan.  1S43. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


139 


other  interview  with  the  Archbishop  to  receive  his  answer  to 
the  deputation  which  addressed  him  at  the  beginning  of  March 
— that  the  Archbishop  was  obstinate,  and  gave  no  hope  of 
yielding — that  there  had  been  a  meeting  of  Welsh  Peets  and 
the  Primus  at  Lord  Powis's  house,  where  it  had  been  agreed  to 
make  an  attempt  with  the  Government,  and  for  this  purpose 
to  send  a  deputation  to  Sir  R.  Peel,  with  the  Bishops  of 
Bangor  and  St.  Asaph  at  its  head,  and,  after  this  effort  to  bring 
the  Ministers  over,  to  introduce  the  proposed  bill  into  the  Lords 
instead  of  the  Commons,  as  before  intended.  .  .  .  Ever  yours 
sincerely,  E.  Badeley. 

The  "  proposed  bill "  here  mentioned  was  a  bill  to  repeal 
so  much  of  the  Church  Commission  Act  as  affected  the  two 
threatened  Sees.    Again,  May  9,  Mr.  Badeley  writes  : — 

The  "Welsh  Bishopric  question  has  been  somewhat  sleepy  of 
late.  I  believe  it  is  only  by  frequently  repeated  raps  that  we 
can  hope  to  keep  it  awake.  ...  I  am  rather  anxious  for  a  re- 
newal of  agitation.  Might  not  a  convenient  road  be  opened, 
through  this  question,  first  to  putting  the  Ecclesiastical  Com- 
mission in  its  true  position,  and  thence  letting  all  people  into 
proper  views  about  Convocation  and  Ecclesiastical  Synods.  The 
ignorance  on  these  subjects  is  hideous.  You  probably  know 
Newman's  articles  on  Convocation  in  the  British  Magazine 
some  seven  or  eight  years  ago.  1  have  almost  wished  for  a 
separate  reprint  of  them,  with  additions. 

Again  : — 

May  12. 

I  have  looked  in  vain,  and  asked  other  persons  with  equal 
bad  success,  for  the  speech  of  the  Archbishop  which  you  want. 
The  North  Wales  Deputation  are  to  go  to  Sir  E.  Peel  to- 
morrow. They  do  not  seem  very  sanguine  of  success,  but  the 
bill,  I  conclude,  will  be  brought  in,  and  it  might  be  worth 
while  to  give  it  a  start  when  it  comes. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  Mr.  Badeley  writes  : — 

I  saw  Lord  Powis  yesterday,  and  had  a  long  account  from 


140 


Letters  oj  the 


him  of  his  interviews  with  the  Archbishop  and  Sir  R.  Peel 
about  the  North  Wales  Bishopric.  The  Primate  and  the  Premier 
were  alike  unsatisfactory.  The  former  repeated  his  old  absurd 
answers,  "  that  he  saw  no  particular  reason  for  altering  the 
Law  now — that  no  objection  had  been  made  at  the  time,"  etc., 
etc.  The  latter  seemed  to  think  that  if  he  concurred  in  any 
change  of  what  had  thus  been  decided  by  legislation  and  the 
Ecclesiastical  Commissioners,  he  should  be  shaking  the  con- 
fidence of  the  country ! !  The  Duke  of  Wellington  puts  him- 
self with  the  Archbishop,  and  thus  I  fear  there  is  very  little 
chance  of  success  this  year.  Of  the  Bishops,  Lord  Powis 
seemed  to  think  there  were  nine  with  us,  six  against  us,  and 
nine  more  less  doubtful.  Perhaps  your  plan  may  be  best — to 
omit  the  firing  of  shots  at  this  time,  and  to  resume  the  subject 
in  order  to  another  bill  next  year — though  I  confess  I  should 
have  liked  some  very  pungent  articles  on  the  Government  and 
the  Commission  at  once,  in  order  to  show  them  the  unpopularity 
as  well  as  the  folly  and  iniquity  of  the  course  they  are  pur- 
suing.— Ever  yours,  most  sincerely,  E.  Badeley. 

Lord  Powis  means  to  move  the  second  reading  of  our  St. 
Asaph  Bill  next  Tuesday,  the  23d. 

Mr.  Badeley  to  J.  B.  M. 

Temple,  June  2,  1843. 
Dear  Mozley, — Lord  Powis  has  fixed  the  11th  of  this  month 
for  his  fight  in  the  Lords  about  the  N.  Wales  Bishopric,  and  a 
severe  fight  it  is  likely  to  be.  If  you  have  an  opportunity,  it 
would  be  as  well  to  launch  the  forked  lightning  of  P.  H.  S. 
at  the  Government  and  the  Archbishop  again,  before  the  day 
comes.  There  may  be  some  occasion  for  doing  so,  by  noticing 
what  has  been  done  within  the  last  few  days  at  Oxford, — the 
Vice- Chancellor  and  Heads  having  agreed  to  give  Lord  Powis 
a  D.C.L.  at  the  Commemoration,  in  testimony  of  the  sense  the 
University  entertains  of  his  services  on  this  question.  The 
V.-C.  sent  a  communication  to  this  effect  to  Lord  Powis,  and  he 
is  much  gratified  with  the  compliment,  and  accepts.    Peel  and 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


141 


the  Abp.  are  as  obstinate  as  ever.  Lord  Powis  had  a  more 
good-humoured  and  favourable  interview  with  the  Duke  and 
the  Bp.  of  London  than  he  had  with  Abp.  and  Peel.  The 
Abp.  told  Lord  Powis  that  as  he  had  now  got  archdeacons  and 
saved  the  canonries  of  St.  Asaph  and  Bangor,  he  might  be 
satisfied.  Lord  Powis  answered,  that  "  archdeacons  and  canons 
were  not  bishops."  {N.B. — This  was  a  private  interview.) 
Peel  was  dry  and  formal,  and  ill-tempered.  The  Bishops  of 
Exeter  and  Sarum  came  up  to  town,  on  purpose  to  aid  our 
bill.  ...  I  think  our  friends  are  put  upon  their  mettle.  You 
may  aid  the  good  cause  by  another  preparatory  shot. — Ever 
yours  sincerely,  E.  Badeley. 

Dr.  Pusey's  suspension  for  two  years,  viewed  in  all  its 
circumstances  and  his  own  behaviour  under  it,  was  certainly 
one  of  the  most  striking  events  of  this  eventful  period.  The 
stir  that  followed  the  announcement  of  the  suspension,  and  the 
indignation  amongst  Dr.  Pusey's  friends,  may  be  seen  in  the 
home  letter  written  in  the  midst  of  all  the  work  of  protest : — 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  June  4,  1843. 
I  have  been  writing  day  after  day  all  this  week,  but  some- 
thing has  just  come  to  take  me  over  the  post  time.  You  have 
heard,  of  course,  of  Pusey's  suspension  for  two  years,  by  the 
papers.  It  excites  enormous  indignation.  All  persons  who 
are  not  quite  with  the  Heads  of  Houses'  clique  are  disgusted. 
It  was  really  a  sermon  which  people  heard  and  went  away, 
thinking  it  fine  and  eloquent  of  course,  and  giving  high  views 
of  the  Eucharist ;  but  as  for  any  doctrine,  the  idea  never 
entered  into  any  one's  head,  till  the  fact  came  out.  The 
Heads  will  find  themselves  in  the  wrong,  their  mode  of 
conducting  the  whole  business  has  been  so  desperately  unfair, 
not  to  say  actually  arrogant  and  tyrannical.  What  do  you 
say  to  Pusey,  in  the  interval  between  the  call  for  the  sermon 
and  the  judgment,  actually  receiving  a  note  from  the  V.-Chan- 
cellor — a  formal  and  official  one — commanding  him  to  hold 


142 


Letters  of  the 


no  intercourse  with  his  friends  on  the  subject  ?  The  sermon 
is  published,  and  now,  I  hope,  something  in  the  way  of  a 
general  display  of  sentiment  will  take  place.1  .  .  .  They  have 
no  notion  of  law — not  an  idea  that  there  is  anything  in  rcrum 
naturce  to  prevent  them  doing  what  they  please.  The  Provost 
is  in  high  spirits,  so  bland  and  courteous.  He  thinks  he  has 
done  the  thing,  but  it  remains  to  be  proved  which  way,  for  they 
have  now  made  it  a  war  pro  aris  ct  focis.  If  a  thing  of  this 
kind  were  tolerated  for  a  moment,  we  might  as  well  take  our- 
selves off  with  our  tails  between  our  legs.  To  show  you  the 
unrestrained,  loose  idea  they  have  of  their  position,  when 
Hampden  first  heard  of  his  citation  by  Macmullen,  he  sent  to 
his  Proctor  to  say  "  he  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  it — 
nothing  to  do  with  it."  His  Proctor  advised  bim  to  change  his 
mind  on  the  subject,  as  in  that  case  he  should  be  reluctantly 
compelled  to  arrest  him  the  next  morning.  This  is  a  symptom 
of  their  state  of  mind.  I  send  you  a  little  thing  of  my  own,  and 
Pusey's  protest,  though  of  course  you  have  seen  the  latter. 
Mine  is  a  technical  affair  rather.  You  will  understand,  how- 
ever, the  main  drift  of  it. 

I  should  have  written  yesterday,  but  what  with  having  to 
attend  Convocation,  lionising,  and  squibbing,  I  let  the  whole  day 
pass.  Three  o'clock  is  the  worst  time  in  the  world  for  the  post 
to  go  out.  Tom  left  to  take  his  duty  at  Cholderton  yesterday  ; 
comes  back  to-morrow. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

T.  M.  and  his  wife  were  at  Oxford  at  this  time.  In  a  letter 
to  her  sister,  June  1 2,  Mrs.  Thomas  Mozley  writes  : — "  James  is 

1  The  occasion  is  so  very  long  past  that  a  few  facts  may  help  the 
reader.  The  subject  of  the  sermon  preached  at  Christ  Church,  the  Fourth 
Sunday  after  Easter,  was  "  The  Holy  Eucharist,  a  Comfort  to  the  Peni- 
tent." Objection  was  taken  to  it,  and  complaint  made  to  the  Vice- 
Chancellor,  Dr.  Wynter,  by  Dr.  Faussett,  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity. 
Upon  this  the  Vice-Chancellor  sent  for  the  sermon,  and  appointed  six 
Doctors  in  conjunction  with  himself — their  names,  Dr.  Faussett,  the  com- 
plainant ;  Dr.  Jenkyns,  Master  of  Balliol  ;  Dr.  Hawkins,  Provost  of  Oriel  ; 
Dr.  Symons,  Warden  of  Wadham  ;  Dr.  Jelf,  Canon  of  Christ  Church  ;  Dr. 
Ogilvie,  Regius  Professor  of  Pastoral  Theology.  Sentence  of  suspension 
was  passed,  but  the  Vice-Chancellor  steadily  refused  then,  or  at  any 
subsequent  period,  to  state  the  grounds  of  condemnation. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


143 


at  the  bottom  of  everything  that  is  going  on;"  at  the  same 
time  repeating  that  all  the  world  was  criticising  Dr.  Pusey's 
line.  Clearly  he  was  a  man  difficult  to  help,  but  the  result 
proved  that  his  own  course  of  action  fitted  his  character. 

In  this  busy  and  exciting  period,  J.  B.  M.  still  found  time 
for  the  British  Critic,  and  was  in  communication  with  Mr. 
Badeley  on  certain  legal  points  connected  with  the  proposed 
Jerusalem  Bishopric,  on  which  an  article  of  his  appeared  in  the 
July  number  of  that  periodical. 

To  return  to  the  leading  subject  of  the  day,  he  writes 
home : — 

Oxford,  July  4,  1843. 
I  hope  Arthur  sent  you  a  good  account  how  things  were 
going  on.  On  looking  back,  the  whole  term  is  just  like  a 
dream,  and  one  only  has  a  vague  recollection  that  one  has 
been  bustling  about,  both  in  body  and  mind,  and  doing  no- 
thing, as  one  ordinarily  does,  and  that,  among  other  things, 
there  has  been  a  sort  of  suspension  of  the  ordinary  communi- 
cations home.  The  address  to  the  Vice-Chancellor  has  not  got 
on  so  well  as  might  have  been  expected,  so  many  who  entirely 
disapprove  of  the  Heads'  proceedings  objecting  to  the  form  of 
the  address,  or  of  an  address  at  all.  .  .  .  The  mysterious  corre- 
spondence between  the  Vice-Chancellor  and  Pusey  leaves  a  kind 
of  terra  incognita,  which  makes  people  feel  not  comfortable. 
Pusey  has  been  most  unfortunate  in  allowing  himself  to  be 
caught  so.  He  has  absolutely  got  suspicion  upon  himself  for 
what  should  have  been  indignation  at  the  other  party's  injustice. 
I  have  just  cast  my  eye  over  Tom's  article,  the  B.  C.  being  only 
just  come.  He  seems  to  take  a  good  bold  straightforward  line 
as  to  the  total  illegality  and  informality  of  the  act,  though 
what  legal  redress  is  practicable  is  another  question. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

Friends  from  the  country  had  written,  taking  the  same  line. 
Mr.  Pdckards,  of  Stow-Langtoft,  writes,  on  first  hearing  the 
news : — 


I 


144  Letters  of  the 

Mr.  Eickards  to  J.  B.  M. 

Stowlangtoft,  June,  17, 1843. 
My  dear  Mozley, — Thank  you  for  the  papers  which,  one 
after  another,  you  have  been  so  good  as  to  send  me.  We 
are  all  at  a  pause  here,  and  in  amazement  too — waiting  for 
the  sermon ;  hardly  believing  that  the  Doctors  can  have 
condemned  the  doctrine  of  the  Eeal  Presence,  and  still  less 
willing  to  believe  that  Dr.  Pusey  can  have  taught  that  by 
transubstantiation  or  consubstantiation.  At  present,  in  all  this 
ignorance,  the  only  thing  I  am  shocked  at  is,  the  not  saying  to 
him  outright,  You  have  offended  thus  and  thus.  All  the  rest 
I  can  suppose  accounted  for ;  but  this  I  speak  not  of  till  I  know 
more,  lest  I  should  use  hard  words  in  vain. — Believe  me,  my 
dear  Mozley,  most  sincerely  yours,  Samuel  Eickards. 

And,  on  the  publication  of  the  letter,  he  thus  delivers  his 
feelings : — 

Stowlangtoft,  July  6, 1843. 
My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  This  morning  I  have  been  reading 
Dr.  Pusey's  sermon  with  amazement  at  what  has  happened,  and 
with  indignation  at  the  doctors.  I  cannot  write  the  word  with 
a  big  D  while  I  write  it  of  them.  There  is  a  good  deal  in  the 
sermon  of  another  sort  which  I  did  not  expect — I  mean,  oddly 
and  questionably  expressed  (I  think)  ;  but  as  to  the  substance 
of  it,  and,  most  of  all,  on  the  point  censured,  if  that  be  not  true 
primitive  and  Church  of  England  doctrine,  I  am  much  more 
astray  myself  than  I  believe  myself  to  be.  Indeed,  I  am 
shocked  at  the  decision  beyond,  and  far  beyond,  what  I  ex- 
pected, until  I  read  for  myself. — Believe  me,  most  sincerely, 
your  friend,  Samuel  Eickards. 

At  the  end  of  July,  J.  B.  M.  writes  from  Oxford : — 

"  I  have  seen  hardly  anybody  here.  30,000  sold — the  last 
account  of  Pusey's  sermon ;  so  said  at  least.  [Frank]  Faber  had 
a  note  from  Pusey  yesterday,  describing  himself  as  receiving  a 
great  deal  of  sympathy  from  all  quarters.  The  Bishop  of  Oxford 
has  declared  strongly  in  defence  of  the  sermon.   Eyder  has  just 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  145 

told  me  of  an  uncle  of  his,  a  strong  Whig,  who  thinks  the 
Doctors  have  behaved  most  unjustly.  Whatever  Pusey  may 
get,  they  have  got  and  will  get  nothing  by  the  affair. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

The  following  note  is  among  the  first  in  a  collection  of 
James  Mozley's  letters,  to  his  friend  Mr.  Church  (now  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's),  from  which  I  have  been  allowed  to  select  letters 
on  subjects  of  the  day,  and  on  deeper  or  more  personal  matters, 
which  will  be  felt  to  add  greatly  to  the  interest  of  the  present 
volume. 

To  the  Rev.  B.  W.  Church. 

12  Paper  Buildings,  August  1843. 
My  dear  Church, — Have  tidings  of  the  correspondence 
between  Badeley  and  the  Vice-Chancellor  reached  you  ?  The 
V.-C.  has  positively  refused  to  receive  the  address,  and  attributed 
malicious  and  seditious  motives  to  the  signers  of  it ! — says  they 
are  acting  against  their  University  oaths  !  You  never  saw  such 
a  document  for  unbridled  folly.  Gladstone,  Judge  Coleridge, 
and  all  are  put  together,  and  the  whole  set  put  down  as  boys ; 
and  the  V.-C.  acts  as  if  he  were  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 
universe.  Badeley  is  amazingly  on  the  qtd  vive  about  it,  enjoy- 
ing it  more  than  I  can  describe.  Gladstone  is  excessively 
indignant ;  Hook  rages.  The  latter  has  dedicated  a  new  work 
of  his  to  Pusey ;  I  question  whether  he  has  not  written  it  on 
purpose  to  dedicate  it.  On  the  whole,  it  is  a  rich  climax.  .  .  . 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  the  autumn  of  1843  Mr.  Newman  resigned  St.  Mary's. 
James  seems  to  have  written  to  him  either  on  the  fact  or  the 
rumour  reaching  him;  for  the  answer,  dated  September  1,  thanks 
him  for  a  "  most  kind  note ;"  then,  for  the  first  time,  confiding 
to  him  his  reasons  for  the  step.    To  his  sister  he  writes : — 

Oxford,  September  6,  1843. 
Newman  giving  up  St.  Mary's  is  indeed  sad  news.    He  says 
in  his  note  to  me  he  is  very  sick  at  the  idea  of  it.  .  .  .  At 

K 


146 


Letters  of  the 


Westminster  Abbey,  ou  Friday,  I  met  Captain  Bowden,  who 
engaged  me  to  come  to  him  at  Wimbledon  on  the  Monday. 
There  I  met  H.  W.  Wilberforce.  He  is  as  amusing  as  ever. 
He  gave  us  an  accurate  account  of  the  paper  got  up  in  his  own 
parish  against  himself  and  his  curate  (St.  John)  by  a  set  of 
people,  James  the  novelist  among  the  rest.  The  Archbishop 
behaved  very  well  about  it,  and  took  no  notice.  St.  John  was 
offered  the  living,  on  H.  W.'s  recommendation,  but  declined 
on  finding  he  could  not  keep  his  studentship  of  Ch.  Ch. 
with  it. 

It  was  a  time  of  stir  and  agitation  of  thought — a  time  when 
persons  were  thrown  upon  themselves,  to  act  no  longer  as 
members  of  a  party  under  a  leader,  but  each  to  consult  his  own 
judgment,  experience,  and  character  how  best  to  work  for  the 
cause  and  principles  he  had  at  heart.  The  following  letters 
recognise  the  importance  of  the  crisis  : — 

To  the  Eev.  B.  W.  Church. 

Bearwood,  September  11,  1843. 
My  dear  Church, —  .  .  .  Now  I  have  a  piece  of  news  for 
you.  My  brother  has  given  up  the  British  Critic.  This  is  not 
exactly  public  as  yet,  but  will  be  soon.  Both  Bogers  and 
myself  think  that  you  would  be  just  the  person  to  succeed. 
What  say  you  ?  Of  course  Bivington  has  not  made  any  offer  as 
yet,  nor  do  I  hear  of  his  having  written  to  J.  H.  N.  or  any 
body  ;  but  if  one  had  a  name  one  might  be  at  him  in  the  first 
instance,  and  prevent  the  B.  C.  getting  out  of  our  hands 
altogether.  For  I  think  it  just  possible  that  Bivington  may 
take  fright  now,  and  put  the  B.  C.  back  into  its  old  quarters 
again. 

Things  are  looking  melancholy  now,  my  dear  Church,  and 
you  and  I  and  all  of  us  who  can  act  together  must  be  bestirring 
ourselves.  I  feel  as  if  a  new  stage  in  the  drama  were  beginning, 
in  which  we  shall  have  to  do  the  uncomfortable  thing,  and 
take  rather  higher  parts  than  we  have  done  hitherto,  or  at  any 
rate  we  must  try  our  best. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


H7 


Of  another  person  unsettled  by  the  aspect  of  affairs,  and 
avowing  a  leaning  towards  Rome,  he  writes  about  the  same 
time  to  a  friend  : — 

September,  1843. 

A.  B.  never  cared  much  about  the  Church  of  England.  All 
his  very  youthful  days  he  was  a  Liberal,  or  something  like  one, 
and  thought  the  Church  system,  and  the  Oxford  system,  and 
all  systems  established  wrong,  much  on  the  Liberal  system  of 
change.  Afterwards  he  altered  in  deference  to  Newman  and 
Froude.  But  he  never  had  any  feelings  for  the  Church ;  he 
never  cared  about  her  best  men  or  her  interesting  periods.  He 
never  cared  a  jot  for  Charles  I.,  or  Laud,  and  all  the  rest  of 
them.  He  has  not,  and  never  had,  any  historical,  poetical,  or 
romantic  associations  connected  with  her.  All  this  is  quite 
out  of  his  line.  He  sees  nothing  but  what  exists  practically  be- 
fore his  eyes, — a  bad  diseased  system.  And  the  soul  or  essence 
of  a  Church,  which  lives  underneath,  it  is  not  his  character  to 
see.  We  should  take  our  Church  as  a  whole,  and  look  on  her 
historically,  and  trace  her  tendencies.  He  would  call  this 
mere  Toryism.  You  unfortunate  High  Church,  as  you  call 
yourselves  in  the  country,  I  can  assure  you,  are  not  a  bit  worse 
off  than  we  of  that  school  are  elsewhere. 

We  must  all  comfort  one  another  as  well  as  we  can.  I 
should  like  much  to  have  some  talk  with  you.  I  am  melancholy, 
but  do  not  despair.  There  is  a  spirit  within  the  Church  now, 
I  think,  that  will  work  whatever  individuals  leave  her. 

Another  of  his  letters,  about  the  same  date,  ends — 

"  I  for  one  must  and  will  believe  that  this  Church  exists  and 
may  be  appealed  to,  elicited,  brought  out,  and  developed  in  a 
course  of  time  from  amidst  the  mass  of  inconsistencies  that 
encumber  her." 

In  this  state  of  feeling  the  retention  of  the  British  Critic,  as 
the  organ  of  the  High  Church  party,  was  a  matter  of  concern 
to  him. 


148 


Letters  of  the 


September  16,  1843. 

My  dear  Church, — You  are  indeed  a  most  modest  person, 
as  I  always  thought  you,  and  as  all  your  friends  think  you.  I 
admire  genuine  modesty  and  humility.  I  have  a  penchant  for 
it.  Nevertheless  I  should  like  to  see  you  editor  of  the  B.  C, 
and  wish  it  depended  on  myself.  Unfortunately  that  is  not 
the  case.  I  called  on  Eivington  the  other  day.  He  was  very 
civil,  even  communicative  on  the  subject  of  the  B.  C.  Seemed 
less  alarmed  at  the  whole  state  of  things  than  I  expected; 
inclined  to  keep  up  B.  ft  on  its  hitherto  footing,  only  dropping 
Oakeley.  But  he  did  not  give  any  opening  for  my  talking 
of  a  successor,  otherwise  I  should  have  mustered  all  my 
delicacies  and  impudencies  and  ambages,  and  insinuated  a 
certain  individual  who  was  the  author  of  mediaeval  articles,  and 
who  seemed  exactly  to  represent  the  tone  that  he  wished  to 
keep  up.  As  it  was,  I  departed,  though  perhaps  something 
may  have  been  done.  I  was  studiously  moderate,  of  course.  I 
suspect  he  took  my  visit  as  an  offer  of  myself.  This  was  my 
fear  at  the  first,  but  it  could  not  be  avoided. 

I  hardly  expect  to  be  in  Oxford  yet.  I  have  not  been 
very  well  lately — that  is,  have  had  a  cold  of  a  nastier  descrip- 
tion than  my  ordinary  colds  are,  and  should  like  to  get  home  or 
to  the  sea-side  if  I  could.  I  am  about  an  article  on  Pusey's 
sermon,  which  I  am  sick  of,  though  I  only  began  it  two  days 
ago. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  7,  1843. 
We  have  been  uncommonly  quiet  this  term,  one  reason  of 
which  is  that  almost  everybody  is  ill  or  invalided.  [Frank] 
Faber  wan  as  ever.  Palmer  has  his  eyes  so  bad  that  he  cannot 
use  them  for  anything.  I  am  something  of  an  invalid  too,  though 
Wootton  says  there  is  nothing  the  matter  with  me.  Archdeacon 
Manning  preached  on  Sunday,  a  testification  sermon  against 
the  British  Critic.  I  did  not  like  either  the  matter  or  tone. 
He  seemed  really  so  carried  away  by  fear  of  Eomanism  that  he 
almost  took  under  his  patronage  the  Puritans  and  the  Whigs  of 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


149 


1688,  because  they  had  settled  the  matter  against  the  Pope. 
He  did  not  indeed  commit  himself  into  a  direct  approval  of 
them  and  the  means  they  used,  but  talked  of  the  whole  move- 
ment as  having  had  a  happy  event  and  being  providential. 
Yet  he  went  up  to  Littlemore  and  saw  J.  H.  N.  yesterday.  I 
suppose  he  wants  to  disconnect  himself  regularly  from  the 
ultra  party,  and  has  taken  this  means.  The  Heads  are  im- 
mensely taken  with  the  sermon  of  course.  It  had  no  merits  as 
a  composition,  and  was  much  inferior  to  his  former  ones.  .  .  . 

As  for  Y.  Z.,  I  do  not  think  he  means  to  cut  the  party 
altogether,  but  is  one  of  those  persons  who  are  always  think- 
ing of  their  own  position,  just  as  invalids  think  of  their 
stomachs;  and  if  he  signs  an  address  to  the  V.-C.  he  must 
prop  himself  up  by  some  counter  step  the  next  opportunity. 

Sibthorpe  [who  had  lately  renounced  Eome,  and  returned 
to  the  Church  he  had  so  lately  forsaken]  is  expected  here 
at  Christmas.  He  has  suffered,  Bloxam  says,  amazingly 
throughout.  But  there  are  some  persons  who  privately  enjoy 
these  spiritual  uneasinesses  and  doubts,  and  I  half  suspect  he 
is  one.  Mariolatry  is  the  point  on  which  he  has  started.  I 
have  no  doubt  there  are  things  to  astonish  any  one  in  that  way, 
but  he  might  have  anticipated  them.  .  .  .  Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  Mozley. 

In  a  letter  home  he  writes  : — 

November  14,  1843. 

E.  Palmer  is  going  to  present  his  Fellowship  to  the  College 
to  buy  new  windows  for  the  chapel,  and  we  are  going  to  rebuild 
our  gateway  in  Gothic  style.  Pugin  has  sent  in  a  plan  which 
will  probably  be  adopted. 

Lincoln's  Inn  Preachership  is  now  in  the  field.  Manning 
and  Palmer  met,  and  had  mutual  complimentings  and  offerings 
to  withdraw.  Manning,  I  think,  stands.  Claughton  is  another 
candidate.  They  say  Manning  is  too  strong  for  the  Lincoln's 
Inn  men ;  if  so,  it  shows  the  inutility  of  men  making  demon- 
strations, for  his  sermon  here  was  thought  quite  low.  You  see 
Palmer  [of  Worcester],  notwithstanding  all  his  demonstrations, 
figures  in   The  Standard  as  a  Puseyite  and  introducer  of 


150 


Letters  of  the 


Eomanism.  The  Standard  professes  to  see  through  his  protest. 
How  unlucky !  The  world  won't  believe  people,  say  what  they 
will.  All  are  put  together  in  one  heap.  We  are  going  on 
now  in  a  sort  of  jumble-j amble  way — differing  amongst  our- 
selves and  attacked  from  without.  No  one  can  look  very  far 
into  the  future,  and  prophesy  from  such  confused  data.  The 
clearest  heads  are  puzzled,  and  our  great  strength  lies  in  the 
anility  and  low  principles  of  our  assailants.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
there  is  sufficient  good  principle  at  bottom  left  among  us 
for  people  not  to  allow  themselves  to  be  ridden  over  by  the 
Hebdomadal  Board. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  latter  allusion  is  to  a  test  or  statute  the  Board  was 
suspected  of  planning  about  B.D.  degrees. 

A  letter,  dated  December  9,  says  that  "  Bivington  has  for 
certain  offered  the  British  Critic  to  Palmer  (of  Worcester),  and 
Palmer  is  going  to  get  up  a  meeting  of  Hook,  etc.,  to  know 
what  he  can  do." 

I  am  informed  on  the  best  authority  that  this  statement  is 
not  correct.  "  It  was  decided  to  discontinue  the  British  Critic. 
The  editorship  was  not  offered  to  any  one.  Mr.  Palmer  sug- 
gested another  Church  organ,  which  was  issued  under  the 
title  of  the  English  Review." 

In  January  1844  I  find  a  letter  to  J.  B.  M.  from  Mr.  Palmer, 
asking  for  contributions  to  his  periodical,  and  specifying  the 
class  of  articles  he  would  prefer,  suggesting,  for  example, 
Prescott's  Conquest  of  Mexico,  Travels  in  Ethiopia,  Letters  from 
Canada  : — a  circumscribed  range,  which  was  not  likely  to  offer 
many  attractions ;  though  there  is  nothing  to  show  this  from 
J.  B.  M.  himself.  In  July  of  this  year  my  brother  announces 
to  Mr.  Church  that  the  Christian  Remembrancer  is  going  to 
become  a  quarterly  ;  and  that  in  its  new  form  he  and  the  Bev. 
William  Scott  of  Hoxton  were  to  be  joint  editors.  James 
contributed  to  the  first  number,  which  came  out  in  October 
1844,  his  article  on  Dr.  Arnold. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


Early  in  1844  the  Hebdomadal  Board  proposed  a  new 
statute  for  conferring  B.D.  degrees,  a  matter  on  which  there 
had  been  a  contention  of  some  standing,  between  Dr.  Hamp- 
den, whose  office  invested  him  with  powers  of  conferring  that 
degree,  and  Mr.  Macmullen,  whose  Fellowship  required  him 
to  proceed  to  B.D.  in  due  course. 

Against  this  proposed  statute  J.  B.  M.  wrote  a  pamphlet, 
which  Mr.  Bickards  congratulates  him  upon  :  "  Thank  you  for 
the  little  pamphlet,  of  which  the  praise  is  that  it  does  its  work 
without  becoming  a  big  one — praise  enough  for  any  man  or 
thing,"  and  which  receives  the  warm  compliments  of  his 
friends,  though  no  copy  of  it  remains  among  the  papers  in 
my  possession. 

To  his  Sister-. 

Oxford,  April  1844. 
.  .  .  You  see  Hampden  has  rejected  Macmullen  after  all.  I 
only  came  late  last  night,  and  have  seen  nobody  at  all  yet.  I 
am  glad  that  the  question  seems  now  brought  to  an  issue,  and 
put  in  an  intelligible  form  before  the  world — namely,  that 
persons  who  differ  in  opinion  from  Dr.  Hampden  are  not  now 
to  be  allowed  their  B.D.,  and  to  be  deprived  of  their  Fellowship 
in  consequence.  .  .  .  Macmullen  is  saved  by  a  clause  in  the 
statute  of  his  College,  which  allows  his  Fellowship  to  go  on  for 
a  time  if  the  attempt  to  get  the  degree  has  been  made.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  Mr.  Bickards  will  send  me  a  line  before  he  comes 
up.  .  .  .    Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

The  next  letter  home  tells  the  fate  of  the  statute  in  Convo- 
cation : — 

Oxford,  May  3,  1844. 
My  dear  Anne, — I  had  not  time  to  tell  you  yesterday  of 
the  event  of  the  day.  The  majority  was  341  against  the 
statute,  2 1  for  it,  which  makes  a  proportion  of  some  16  to  1 . 
Nobody  expected  such  a  majority.  There  is  no  doubt  that  if 
the  Heads  had  been  united  among  themselves,  and  taken  it  up 


Letters  of  the 


warmly,  they  could  have  commanded  at  any  rate  a  few  more 
than  nine  votes,  for  twelve  among  the  Heads  themselves  must 
have  passed  the  statute  and  voted  for  it  in  Congregation,  which 
leaves  nine  Masters.  Mr.  Eickards  dined  with  me  on  Wednes- 
day, and  a  number  of  men  looked  in  in  the  evening  who  had 
just  come  up.  Bridges  came  up.  X.  was  in  high  force,  darting 
about,  and  speaking  to  almost  six  people  at  once,  not  having 
patience  to  get  through  any  complete  sentence  to  one  individual 
before  another  became  the  object  of  his  attention.  Tom  I  saw 
for  about  half-an-hour.  He  went  up  to  lunch  at  Mrs.  Pearson's 
with  Mr.  Eickard  and  J.  H.  K  Dr.  Hook  looked  remarkably 
majestic.  There  was  a  gay  sprinkling  of  silk  gowns  in  the 
theatre  and  quadrangle.  The  day  was  lucky  too — a  fine  day  is 
half  the  battle  on  such  occasions.  I  hardly  think  any  of  the 
non-residents  grumbled  at  having  come  up  ;  they  seemed  to 
enjoy  it. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

As  one  way  of  accounting  for  the  smallness  of  the  Heads' 
minority,  a  previous  letter  speaks  of  "  the  Duke  "  having  had 
the  proposed  statute  laid  before  him : — 

The  Duke's  answer  is  considered  a  decided  snub.  .  .  . 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  Gladstone  has  been  consulted 
by  the  Duke  upon  it.  At  any  rate  his  character  and  known 
connection  with  the  movement  had  not  improbably  an  in- 
fluence over  a  fellow  Cabinet  Minister.  But  the  Duke's 
straightforwardness  accounts  for  it  without  any  other  supposi- 
tion. .  .  . 

My  patronage  (as  Fellow  of  Magdalen)  is  all  over  for  an 
immense  time.  So  my  friends  will  care  nothing  about  me, 
especially  the  dear  ones  from  Lincolnshire  and  the  stupid 
fathers  of  stupid  sons,  and  all  that  class. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  May  20,  1844. 
I  hear  from  Badeley  that  there  is  no  hope  of  the  Welsh 
Bishoprics  Bill  passing  this  time.     Lord  Powis  and  others 
had  an  interview  with  Sir  E.  Peel  and  the  Archbishop  the 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


153 


other  day,  and  both  were  as  obstinate  as  possible — said  that 
the  confidence  of  the  country  would  be  shaken  if  the  decision 
of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  was  upset.  Nevertheless 
Lord  Powis  is  to  bring  the  bill  into  the  House  next  week. 

A  letter  two  or  three  weeks  later,  from  J.  B.  M.,  is  in  a 
different  tone : — 

Lord  Powis  and  Serjeant  Talfourd  are  to  have  D.C.L. 
degrees  at  Commemoration.  The  former  should  be  cheered 
decidedly.  I  heard  from  Badeley  this  morning  in  high  spirits  at 
his  success  with  the  Welsh  Bishoprics  ;  the  poor  Archbishop 
[Howley],  he  says,  was  tamer  than  conceivable ;  seemed  at 
last  almost  ashamed  of  himself.  The  Bishop  of  Exeter  was 
very  good. 

In  the  same  letter  is  a  notice  of  Professor  William  Donkin, 
whose  taste — or  rather  genius — for  music  was  remarkable : — 

Donkin  played  "  Adelaide."  There  is  certainly  a  sui  generis 
character  about  his  playing.  He  seems  to  personate  a  whole 
band — I  mean  all  the  variety  and  starts  and  flashes  of  it — in 
miniature.  It  is  different  from  ordinary  execution.  Thus  in  the 
overture  he  played,  the  effect  is  not  flashy  or  loud,  but  only 
very  versatile,  subtle,  and  varied. 

In  his  Life  of  Bishop  Wilbcrforce,  Canon  Ash  well  gave  a 
a  page  to  the  opposition  raised  to  the  election  of  Dr.  Symons 
as  Vice-Chancellor  in  succession  to  Dr.  Wynter,  on  the  ground 
of  his  having  been  one  of  the  Six  Doctors.  The  letters  before 
us  show  how  one  or  two  eager  spirits,  confident  in  their  cause, 
can  override  hesitation.  Of  course  all  the  party  were  of  one 
mind  as  to  the  fact  that  Symons  was  a  most  undesirable  Vice- 
Chancellor.  He  was  reported  to  have  said  the  Puseyites  had 
been  treated  too  leniently,  and  ought  to  have  been  crushed 
long  ago.  His  animus  was  bitter  and  unscrupulous.  But  the 
question  was  the  expediency  of  the  opposition.    Mr.  Henry 


*54 


Letters  of  the 


Wall  of  Balliol  gave  the  chief  impulse  to  the  move.  A  letter 
from  him  brings  out  that  J.  B.  M.'s  first  feeling  had  been 
against  it.  "I  was  not  aware,"  writes  Mr.  Wall,  "of  the 
extent  of  your  aversion  to  the  measure  of  opposing  Symons ;" 
so  it  is  clear  he  had  to  be  won  over ;  but  the  letter  shows  a 
confidence  of  being  able  to  carry  the  point,  which  had  its  effect. 
James  is  brought  round,  and  writes  to  Mr.  Keble.  Mr. 
Keble  answers : — 

Mr.  Keble  to  J.  B.  M. 

I  am  sorry  to  seem  to  demur  at  any  proposal  of  yours,  but 
the  truth  is,  I  am  not  at  all  satisfied  as  to  the  expediency  of 
such  a  move  as  this  relating  to  the  Vice-Chancellorship.  I 
argued  the  point  at  Bisley  with  some  one  who  seemed  to 
think  there  were  reasons  of  justice  and  dutifulness  against  it, 
and  I  said  I  had  no  feeling  of  that  kind,  but  I  doubted  the 
expediency.  However,  if  Marriott  [Isaac  Williams  had 
written  from  Bisley  strongly  for  the  opposition  to  Symons] 
thought  good  to  summon  me,  I  promised  to  go.  And  then 
Marriott  said  there_was  little  or  no  chance  of  a  majority,  but  if 
we  had  only  150  votes  against  Symons,  it  would  be  worth 
while,  etc.  I  will  write  to  K.  Wilberforce  and  some  other 
friends,  but  I  fear  it  will  be  very  little  that  I  shall  be  able  to 
do.  Your  ground  seems  quite  the  right  one,  and  I  shall  try 
to  state  it  to  people  as  well  as  I  can.  May  I  ask  what  would 
be  the  immediate  consequence  of  our  getting  a  majority,  should 
so  unlikely  a  thing  occur  ?  1"  tell  people,  merely  to  make 
the  next  man,  whoever  he  be,  more  careful. 

Writing  home,  J.  B.  M.  says  : — 

September  4,  1844. 
Touching  the  V.-C.  business,  the  thing  is  capable  of  being- 
looked  at  two  ways.  Merely  as  an  attack  on  Symons  it  is 
weak,  but  considering  the  whole  of  the  present  Vice- 
Chancellorship  has  been  one  continuous  course  of  positive 
unconstitutional  proceedings,  it  is  a  fair  and  solid  ground  to 
take  to  make  a  protest  against  it,  and  oppose  a  man  as  V.-C. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


155 


who  is  certain  to  continue  it.  And  the  time  of  a  new  V.-C. 
coming  in  is  a  definite,  marked  time  to  select  from  the  show. 
It  is  certain  to  be  done  now,  and,  on  the  whole,  I  am  glad 
for  it.  Keble,  I.  Williams,  and  K.  Wilberforce  are  for  it.  The 
latter  I  was  rather  surprised  at,  but  it  proves  so  far  that  the 
idea  commends  itself  to  people. 

R  Wilberforce,  however,  did  not  vote.  Mr.  Keble's  letter 
was  no  doubt  written  when  he  had  returned  from  Bisley  to 
Hursley,  and  had  thought  quietly  over  the  matter.  An  insight 
into  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  affair  seems  to  make  some 
unaccountable  things  more  intelligible.  The  result  justified 
the  less  sanguine  in  their  hesitation.  Dr.  Symons  was  elected 
by  a  majority  of  882  to  183. 

The  first  number  of  the  Christian  Remembrancer,  as  a 
quarterly,  came  out  October  1844.  Each  editor  contributed 
an  article — James  Mozley  on  Dr.  Arnold,  Mr.  Scott  on  Mr. 
Keble's  Prelections  as  Professor  of  Poetry.  This  article  is 
described  in  the  following  letter : — 

September  27,  1844. 

My  dear  Anne, — It  seems  an  age  since  I  wrote  home.  I 
have  been,  as  you  might  conjecture,  tolerably  busy  lately.  But 
the  C.  R.  is  all  in  the  printer's  hands  now,  and  the  thing  finished 
for  good  or  for  bad  this  time.  I  confess  my  own  article  has 
been  my  chief  work.  I  have  not  been  very  editorial.  Scott's 
article  on  Keble  is  exceedingly  good,  thoroughly  critical  and 
scientific.  It  is  an  article  it  will  do  people  positive  good 
to  read  through.  That  is  not  perhaps  the  most  captivating 
form  of  putting  it.  What  I  mean  is  that  it  points  out  a  whole 
scientific  view  of  poetry,  and  a  whole  field  of  criticism  that  will 
be  new  to  many — of  course  gathered  all  from  the  Prelections. 
The  translation  from  the  Latin  of  Keble  sounds  quaint  at 
times,  but  perhaps  could  not  be  helped.  It  is  an  odd  situation 
to  be  translating  from  the  Latin  of  an  Englishman. 

With  respect  to  Arnold  I  have  taken  the  line  that  I  really 
and  truly  felt  about  him.    And  if  any  are  offended  I  cannot 


156 


Letters  of  the 


help  it.  I  depreciate  more  than  condemn  him ;  that  is,  I  am 
conscious  that  my  style  throughout  supposes  him  a  less  great 
man  a  good  deal  than  what  some  think.  However,  it  is  no  use 
heralding  one's-self  in  this  way. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

A  lady  friend  of  Mr.  Keble,  in  a  letter  of  this  date,  tells  me 
that  Mr.  Keble  very  much  approves  of  the  Arnold  article,  and 
speaks  of  James  Mozley  as  a  true  son  of  the  Church. 

In  October,  after  the  number  has  come  out  and  been  read, 
he  writes  to  his  sister  at  Choldertoii : — 

I  am  glad  to  find  my  account  of  Arnold  satisfies  the  Rugby 
men  fairly.    I  did  not  want  to  offend  them. 

Our  minority,  small  as  it  is,  seems  to  be  producing  effects. 
Dr.  Daubeny,  calling  on  Bloxam,  said  that  he  and  others  were 
made  so  utterly  miserable  by  such  proceedings  that  they  hoped 
they  never  would  occur  again.  Bloxam  said  that  depended  on 
circumstances.  The  one  fact  of  calling  in  question  the  rotation 
seems  to  put  people  out  immensely.  Their  idea  of  the  Uni- 
versity is  altogether  disjointed  by  it.  .  .  .  Coleridge  of  Eton 
replied  to  some  insults  from  some  members  of  the  majority 
rather  well :  "  We  have  a  saying  at  school  that  when  a  little 
boy  fights  a  big  boy,  the  big  boy  does  not  bully  him  again." — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

"Writing  home  he  betrays  a  less  cheerful  tone  on  the  same 
subject. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

Oxford,  November  8, 1844. 
Things  look  dark  and  cloudy  just  now.  There  is  a  general 
set  upon  us  from  all  quarters,  Conservative  and  Badical.  The 
press  never  was  so  malignant.  What  is  still  worse  is  the  utter 
indifference  of  a  great  number.  Men  who  talk  for  you  in  a 
sort  of  way,  and  profess  no  sympathy  with  the  attacks  on  us 
— e.g.  on  Pusey — yet  take  advantage  of  the  first  opportunity 
offered  them,  of  coming  up  expressly  to  rivet  the  chain.  A 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


157 


large  proportion  of  the  majority  last  time  was  composed  of  men 
with  fair  speeches  in  their  mouths,  who  said  they  disliked 
everything  the  Heads  had  done,  but  thought  this  was  not  the 
mode  or  the  occasion  (or  some  periphrasis  of  that  sort)  of 
showing  it.  I  can  quite  understand  men  being  quiet  and  not 
liking  to  vote  with  us  on  such  a  question,  but  that  men  of 
professed  High  Churchmanship,  and  professing  a  strong  dis- 
approbation of  the  gross  injustice  shown  to  Pusey,  should 
actually  go  out  of  their  way,  put  themselves  to  trouble,  come 
up  in  multitudes  to  perform  a  positive  voluntary,  gratuitous 
act,  of  swamping  us,  so  far  as  mere  weight  could  do  it,  is  a 
fact  that  I  cannot  pass  over ;  it  seems  'prima  facie  to  show 
such  heartlessness.  .  .  . 

For  my  own  part,  I  feel  that  to  be  giving  way  to  melancholy 
or  disgust  at  the  present  state  of  things  would  be  giving  myself 
airs.  I  have  no  right  to  do  it.  Moreover,  all  movements  have 
their  dark  times,  and  this  may  be  only  one  of  them,  and  one 
hopes  it  will  pass  off. 

With  respect  to  J.  H.  N.,  all  I  know  about  him  is  that  he 
has  been  regularly  down  about  things  for  the  last  year  or  two, 
and  that  he  has  expressed  doubts  as  to  the  Catholicity  of 
the  English  Church.  I  don't  know  anything  more  about  it. 
He  is  hardly  ever  in  Oxford  now. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

The  test  spoken  of  in  the  following  letter  was  an  alteration 
in  the  University  Statutes  proposed  by  the  Hebdomadal  Board, 
to  be  appended  to  the  condemnation  of  Mr.  Ward's  book,  The 
Ideal  of  a  Christian  Church  Considered. 

To  his  Sister. 

There  is  a  strong  feeling  against  the  Test  in  all  moderate 
persons  in  Oxford  and  London,  the  only  places  I  have  been 
in.  Badeley  met  Ernest  Hawkins,  who  was  not  only  against  it 
himself,  but  said  everybody  else  was  he  had  seen.  The  ruse  of 
the  piecing — the  joining  the  Test  to  Ward's  business — only  re- 
quires to  be  seen,  to  get  us  a  majority.   They  could  not  carry 


158 


Letters  of  the 


a  Test  by  itself.  I  hope  it  will  be  seen,  though  people  are  made 
strangely  blind  by  a  provoking  book  like  Ward's. 

With  respect  to  Ward,  I  would  simply  tell  Mr.  Kickards  [at 
whose  house  A.  M.  was  staying,  and  who  had  expressed  himself 
strongly  against  Ward],  to  think  or  not  think  about  him,  just 
as  he  likes.  The  Test  is  the  thing  we  are  concerned  with — 
Ward  can  defend  himself.  The  miserable  state  of  things  that 
will  ensue  here  if  it  passes  makes  it  almost  a  personal  matter 
to  ask  one's  friends  to  come  up.  Pusey  will  not  take  the  Test — 
that  he  has  declared  publicly.  What  is  the  result  ?  He  will 
be  liable  any  day  to  expulsion  or  perpetual  banishment  from 
the  University.  Every  one  who  votes  for  the  Test  will  be 
voting  for  his  immediate  liability  to  that  punishment.  Hussey 
the  Professor,  Eden,  Baden  Powell  (!),  and  several  Liberals, 
Price  of  Rugby,  are  all  strong  against  it — a  curious  mixture. 
I  distrust  the  Liberals,  however,  they  hate  us  so.  Gladstone 
is  very  strong,  and  thinks  every  exertion  ought  to  be  made 
against  it. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

Towards  the  end  of  December  J.  B.  M.,  as  editor  of  the 
Christian  Remembrancer,  sent  Dr.  Pusey  proofs  of  an  article 
by  H.  W.  W.,  to  appear  in  the  forthcoming  number  under 
the  title  "The  Vice-Chancellorship  of  Dr.  Wynter."  The 
following  remarks  and  comments,  with  the  returned  proofs, 
are  honourably  characteristic  of  the  writer  : — 

Dr.  Pusey  to  J.  B.  M. 

PRIVATE. 

December  20,  '44. 
My  dear  M., — I  doubt  very  seriously  about  all  this  invec- 
tive against  Dr.  Wynter,  because  I  was  certain  the  whole  was 
the  proceeding  of  a  timid,  not  of  an  unscrupulous  man.  He 
was  afraid  to  commit  himself,  afraid  to  commit  the  University, 
afraid  to  make  known  why  he  condemned  my  sermon,  or  to  let 
it  pass  uncondemned ;  unwilling  to  sentence  me  without 
giving  me  any  chance  of  escape,  yet  afraid  to  commit  himself 
to  any  controversy,  and  most  unwilling  of  all  that  I  should  be 
able  to  say  such  and  such  propositions  were  given  me  to  accept 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


159 


or  reject.  He  thereby  sacrificed  himself;  but,  however,  he 
became  embittered,  as  it  seems ;  and,  although  timidity  often 
becomes  the  greatest  cruelty,  such  was  the  key  to  his  conduct, 
and  so  it  is  really  wrong  to  speak  of  meanness,  etc.  These 
personal  attacks  always  do  harm  to  those  who  make  them.  I 
wish  you  would  read  over  and  amend  these  pages  with  this  key. 
I  think  much  would  be  better  re-written.  H.  W.  was  in  a 
great  hurry,  and  has  not  put  forth  his  mind.  There  are  abusive 
epithets  which  do  harm,  but  not  much  power.  To  say  the 
whole,  I  involved  myself  so  far,  in  my  anxiety  to  obtain  or 
force  a  hearing,  that,  though  they  took  no  notice  of  what  I 
wrote,  I  committed  myself  enough  to  admit  of  a  plausible 
primd  facie  case  to  be  made  out,  to  give  the  Record  and 
Standard  scope  for  abuse.  I  am  not  anxious,  then,  for  ex- 
planations. Of  course,  I  know  I  am  in  the  right  in  what  I 
said ;  but  there  is  enough  in  what  I  did  to  explain  myself 
(though  utterly  useless),  to  enable  them  to  throw  dust  into 
others'  eyes. — Yours  affectionately,  E.  B.  P. 

P.S.—I  have  made  two  observations  in  the  margin,  but  half 
erased  them  lest  they  should  be  printed.  I  have  also  altered 
one  or  two  passages  ;  if  my  substitution  looks  like  my  style 
you  can  retouch  it. 

In  the  midst  of  these  exciting  distractions,  J.  B.  M.  was 
engaged  on  his  Article  on  Laud,  which  appeared  January  1845, 
on  which  he  writes  to  his  sister  : — 

December  27. 

I  have  been  writing  an  article  on  Laud — my  own  biogra- 
phical line  again.  He  is  a  considerably  more  difficult  character 
than  Arnold — great,  but  twisty.  It  is  difficult  to  follow  him 
into  all  his  corners.  However,  it  is  one  good  result  of  writing 
for  a  point  of  time — when  the  end  of  the  month  is  come  the 
thing  must  go  in,  good  or  bad,  and  it  is  over. 

To  his  Sister. 

London,  January  23,  1845. 
They  have  got  an  opinion  about  the  Degradation  and  the 
Test  from  Bethell  and  Dodson  (Queen's  Advocate),  strongly 


i6o 


Letters  of  the 


against  the  legality  of  both.  This  was  shown  at  the  Hebdo- 
madal Board,  and  oh  !  oh  !  d. ;  on  the  principle  that  any  opinion 
could  be  got  for  two  guineas.  Nevertheless,  it  seems  pretty 
certain  that  they  will  withdraw  the  Test.  Almost  the  whole 
Board  were  giving  their  experience  of  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  votes  against  it  there  was  certain  to  be,  the 
Provost  alone  declaring  that  his  experience  was  two  to  one  for  ; 
and  that  people's  eyes  were  opening  to  its  merits  every  day. 
Gaisford  said  he  had  been  advised  by  a  person  of  "  very  high 
consideration,"  supposed  to  be  Sir  J.  Graham,  to  carry  the  two 
former  [condemnation  and  degradation  of  Ward]  with  a  high 
hand,  but  not  to  press  the  latter  [the  test]. 

At  this  time  we  gather  from  a  letter  of  Archdeacon  S. 
Wilberforce  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  test  was  really  given  up.1 

The  statute,  however,  continued  the  subject  of  eager  dis- 
cussion beyond  the  date  of  this  announcement.  In  one  College 
several  of  the  Fellows  had  declared  their  intention  to  the  V.-C, 
to  vote  for  the  Test,  when  they  were  startled  by  the  objection 
that  it  imposed  an  additional  examination :  "  Very  well,  then, 
you  want  to  saddle  a  new  examination  on  the  College."  "  Oh  ! 
Examination — I  never  heard  anything  about  that."  Second 
Voice — "That's  quite  a  different  thing."  Third — "I'll  be 
hanged  if  I  '11  vote  for  a  new  examination." 

The  Test  being  given  up,  the  Hebdomadal  Board  startled 
the  University  by  proposing  the  condemnation  of  Number 
Ninety — as  a  sort  of  second  thought. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  February  1,  1845. 
The  Number  Ninety  move  is  a  gross  one  indeed ;  I  should 

1  "  Since  I  wrote  to  you  last,  and  told  you  in  confidence  the  then  decision, 
I  have  heard  again  (also  in  confidence)  what  much  qualified  that  information. 
It  is  that — (1.)  The  Board  of  Heads  will  not  withdraw  the  new  statute 
solely  because  they  will  be  beat  upon  it  in  Convocation  ;  (2.)  That  they  will, 
on  address  signed  by  men  of  known  moderation  ;  (3.)  That  they  are  cer- 
tainly not  averse  to  such  an  address  ;  (4.)  That  I  am  esteemed  a  fit  person 
to  prepare  it.  I  have  drawn  up  this,  and  sent  it  to  some  friends." — Life  of 
Bishop  Wilberforce,  vol.  i.  p.  356. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mo z ley,  D.D.  161 


hardly  think  it  can  succeed.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  not 
time  for  it  now,  to  hring  it  on  on  the  13th ;  and  it  could  hardly 
do  to  renew.  That  da  capo  plan  seldom  succeeds.  There 
must  be  a  week's  notice,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  Hebdo- 
madal Board,  before  the  discussion  of  the  matter  there,  after 
the  presentation  of  the  petition.  This,  if  the  petition  is  pre- 
sented Monday  after  next,  which  is  the  first  opportunity  it  can, 
makes  the  simple  discussion  of  the  matter  impossible  at  the 
Board  till  after  the  13th,  unless  they  violate  their  own  rules, 
and,  if  they  did,  there  is  not,  I  think,  statutable  time  from 
Monday  to  Thursday  for  the  proposition  that  is  to  be  brought 
before  Convocation.  Anyhow,  it  would  have  to  be  done  with 
such  disgraceful  precipitation,  that  they  dare  hardly  venture  on 
it.  Golightly  is  in  thick  communication  with  Dr.  Ellerton, 
and  is  coming  in  and  going  out  of  College  every  day.  He,  and 
E.,  and  F.  are  the  trio  on  the  subject.  E.  says  nothing  about  it 
in  public,  which,  if  he  was  getting  on  well,  he  would  cer- 
tainly do ;  I  asked  him  how  he  was  getting  on  this  morning, 
and  he  informed  me  that  he  had  received  the  name  of  Mr. 
Hugh  Stowell,  at  which  I  was  not  surprised.  After  all,  it  is 
really  an  impertinence  for  such  men  to  head  a  movement, 
and  think  that  the  world  will  follow  them.  Their  names  will 
hardly  do ;  at  least,  the  fury  of  people  must  be  tremendous 
if  they  can  be  caught  by  such. 

Church  [who,  as  Proctor,  was  member  of  the  Board]  describes 
the  Hebdomadal  Board  as  in  a  great  fix  about  the  opinion  on 
Ward's  Degradation ;  they  hate  giving  way  to  it,  and  yet  it 
bears  its  own  solidity  so  genuinely  upon  it,  that  it  will  be  a 
most  disgraceful  thing  for  them  to  bring  on  the  measure  in 
spite  of  it — and  rush  knowingly  into  an  illegal  act.  I  am 
clear  for  Arthur  coming  up,  and  voting  against  it ;  after  Keble 
and  Moberly  and  the  rest  have  written  against  it,  it  should  be 
opposed  by  all  Churchmen.  Besides,  its  illegality  is  quite  a 
good  ground  enough  in  itself. 

The  Board  do  not  relax  one  iota  from  their  imperturbable 
self-conceit.  All  the  world  is  wrong  about  things,  and  they 
are  right.  They  are  utterly  incapable  of  understanding  how 
the  "  Declaration  "  could  be  construed  into  a  Test.    Our  Fellow, 


l62 


Letters  of  the 


Hutton,  who  is  a  friend  of  Ogilvie's,  quite  unconsciously  men- 
tions the  "  New  Test  "  in  a  letter,  not  dreaming  that  it  was  not 
one,  and  received  quite  an  angry  answer,  to  say,  that  whatever 
way  he  voted,  he  should  call  things  by  their  right  names — it 
was  not  a  Test. 

Of  course  in  the  private  correspondence  between  Archdeacon 
Wilberforce  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  it  is  treated  simply  as  a  test, 
and  in  all  letters  of  the  period.  The  statute  could  have  no  other 
use.  The  Test,  under  whatever  name,  was  given  up ;  but  the 
No.  XC.  move  grew  beyond  expectation. 

The  next  letter  is  on  the  petition  got  up  for  the  condemna- 
tion of  No.  XC. 

To  his  Sister. 

Ash  Wednesday,  1845. 

As  you  will  have  heard,  the  No.  XC.  move  has  mounted 
up  tremendously.  I  confess  it  was  so  very  low  and  ungenerous 
that  I  did  not  expect  it ;  at  the  same  time  I  was  not,  and 
am  not,  surprised,  now  it  has  happened  so ;  one  is  surprised 
at  nothing.  If  the  University  chooses  to  accept  the  guid- 
ance of  such  men  as  G.  and  E.  and  F.,  it  is  welcome,  and 
much  good  may  it  do  it.  I  cannot  admire  people's  taste.  It 
is  remarkable,  however,  that  among  the  476  names  only  very 
few  are  resident,  and  The  Globe  acknowledges  that  it  is  bringing 
down  the  country  parsons  and  the  clubs  upon  us.  The  Heb- 
domadal Board  are  now  fairly  taking  their  line  in  putting 
themselves  at  the  head  of  the  non-residents,  and  determined  to 
quash  us  one  way  or  another.  It  is  certainly  owing  to  the 
Provost  that  the  measure  is  passed ;  he  was  exceedingly  bitter, 
and  when  men  are  bitter  and  strong,  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
personal  courtesy  at  the  Board  not  to  disoblige  them. 

I  should  have  thought  that  the  Provost,  having  got  them 
into  the  scrape  about  the  Test,  would  have  impaired  his  influ- 
ence a  little.    But  a  man  who  can  talk  is  all-powerful. 

We  are  sending  down  circulars  with  reasons  against,  and 
talking  of  the  haste  and  precipitation  of  the  measure.  The 


Rev  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


present  is  a  regular  case,  in  which  want  of  principle  gives  a 
party  a  positive  advantage  ;  only  an  exceedingly  vulgar  animus 
of  a  party  could  have  brought  itself  to  wake  up  a  thing  from 
four  years  ago,  and  apropos  to  nothing,  to  censure  a  man  who 
has  withdrawn  from  the  University.  Lord  Ashley  and  the 
Bishops  of  Llandaff  and  Chichester  signed  the  petition. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  so  good  account  of  my  father. 

Newman  will  take  it  very  easy ;  but  these  things  disgust 
and  affect  him  more  than  he  shows. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

A  few  days  later  J.  B.  M.  reports  progress : — 
To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  Saturday,  1845. 

We  are  very  active  here,  and  have  been  sending  out 
circulars.  I  heard  from  Badeley  yesterday;  Judge  Coleridge 
was  fierce  against  the  thing,  and  was  for  the  Proctors  vetoing. 
The  Bishop  of  Exeter  disapproved  of  it.  Pusey  heard  from 
Gladstone,  who  was  exceedingly  indignant,  and  seemed  almost 
to  hint  at  some  demonstration  against  it  from  himself. 

Of  course  the  thing  will  be  carried  unless  the  Proctors  put 
their  veto,  but  a  good  minority  will  tell  in  such  a  gross  case. 
The  Liberals  were  against  it,  many  of  them.  Newman  is  of 
course  very  easy,  though  he  feels  such  demonstrations  more 
than  he  shows. 

Eogers  and  Badeley  are  both  writing,  and  I  am  engaged  in 
a  brochure. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — You  must  console  Mrs.  Newman.  Everybody  who 
has  any  heart  feels  most  indignant  at  this  business,  which  is  a 
consolation  in  its  way. 

This  postscript  refers  to  Mrs.  E.  Newman,  an  elderly  lady, 
aunt  to  Mr.  Newman,  who  had  settled  in  Derby  to  be  near  her 
niece,  Mrs.  John  Mozley,  and  who  was  greatly  troubled  by  the 
whole  state  of  things  relating  to  her  nephew,  to  whom  she  was 
devotedly  attached. 


Letters  of  ike 


To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  February  1845. 

The  decision  in  Convocation  will  have  come  to  you  before 
you  get  this  note:  777 — 386  on  the  first;  569 — 511  on  the 
second.  Some  of  our  side  were  disappointed,  and  there  was  a 
general  gloom  thrown  over  us,  for  there  really  were  strong 
expectations  that  the  Degradation  would  not  be  carried.  I 
never  was  sanguine  enough  to  think  so,  and  when  I  saw  the 
full  Theatre  the  affair  seemed  settled.  But,  after  all,  it  was 
a  near-run  thing.  A  majority  of  fifty  is  nothing  on  such  a 
question.  The  point  is  carried,  and  now  a  legal  career  is  in 
prospect.  Ward's  speech  was  clear  and  fluent.  He  has  a 
very  good  voice,  and  every  word  was  heard. 

The  main  line  was  that  all  parties  in  the  Church  did  sub- 
scribe in  a  non-natural  sense  some  parts  or  other  of  the  Articles 
and  formularies.  His  tone  was  too  conversational,  and  had  not 
effect  enough.  Mr.  Blandy,  however,  was  convinced  by  it,  and 
consequently  voted  for  him  on  the  first  point,  on  which  he  had 
not  intended  to  vote  at  all.  Mr.  F.  Dyson  was  up,  and  voted 
right.  After  all,  I  really  am  astonished  at  the  number  of  men, 
and  sort  of  men,  who  supported  Ward  after  such  avowals  as  he 
made.  It  is  really  a  phenomenon  to  me.  If  he  said  once  he 
said  twenty  times  in  the  course  of  his  speech,  "I  believe  all  the 
doctrines  of  the  Boman  Church,"  and  511  members  of  Convoca- 
tion voted  for  him.  Of  course  not  half-a-dozen  of  these  agree 
with  him,  but  some  think  that  Convocation  is  not  the  proper 
place  to  decide  theological  questions ;  others  that  Bomanism  is 
not  worse  than  heresy,  and  that  Ward  ought  not  to  be  degraded 
when  Hampden,  and  Whately,  and  a  hundred  others  are  let  off. 
Still  it  is  an  extraordinary  phenomenon  to  me  that  511  should 
have  voted  so.  Of  course,  we  had  a  great  many  Liberals  on 
our  side,  and  all  sorts  of  people  on  different  grounds.  But  still 
it  is  considered  on  the  whole  a  Fuseyite  minority. 

Things  are  in  an  odd  state,  but  we  must  take  things  as  we 
find  them.  I  heartily  wish  that  Ward  could  have  been  gagged, 
but  if  he  does  say  things,  and  come  out,  he  is  a  fact  and  part 
of  the  state  of  things  one  has  to  cope  with. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


165 


[A  friend  recalling  the  occasion,  at  which  he  was  present, 
dwells  on  the  proceedings  immediately  following  upon  Ward's 
speech — "  The  universal  immense  laughter  with  which  it  was 
received  was  one  of  the  historical  laughs  of  the  world.  I 
never  remember  anything  like  it."] 

Gladstone  came  down  on  Wednesday  night,  and  stayed  with 
Hope,  of  Merton.  I  saw  him,  and  breakfasted  and  dined  yes- 
terday with  him  at  Hope's.  He  does  not  talk  much.  He  is 
obviously  exceedingly  disgusted  at  the  state  of  things  here,  and 
looked  gloomy  after  the  result  of  the  Convocation,  which  he 
thought,  however,  "  very  fair  for  a  mob."  There  is  something 
very  pleasing  about  him.  Hope  is  a  man  one  likes  more  the 
more  one  sees  him.  Sir  W.  Heathcote,  Manning,  Hook,  D. 
Chandler,  J.  D.  Coleridge,  H.  Wilberforce  were  the  rest  of  the 
party. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — Guillemarde,  the  Senior  Proctor,  delivered  his  veto 
with  immense  effect  [this  on  the  No.  XC.  question].  A  shout 
of  Non  was  raised,  and  resounded  through  the  whole  building 
and  Placets  from  the  other  side,  over  which  Guillemarde's 
Nobis  procuratorihcs  non  placet  was  heard  like  a  trumpet,  and 
cheered  enormously.  The  Dean  of  Chichester  threw  himself 
out  of  his  Doctor's  seat,  and  shook  both  Proctors  violently  by 
the  hand.  The  requisition  has  been  renewed,  as  we  expected. 
I  don't  know  any  more  yet. 

The  requisition  was,  of  course,  to  request  the  Board  to  renew 
the  attack  ;  but  the  following  letter,  written  two  months  later, 
concludes  the  affair  : — 

Oxford,  1845. 

My  dear  Anne, — The  matter  about  No.  XC.  was  decided  at 
the  Board  yesterday  without  a  division — in  the  negative.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  idea  whatever  of  bringing  it  on  again,  and  very 
little  was  said.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  draw  up  an 
answer  to  the  requisitionists.  The  Proctors  of  last  year  thus 
stand  in  a  somewhat  triumphant  position,  having  beaten  the 
Hebdomadal  Board.  I  suppose  the  answer  to  the  requisitionists 
will  be  as  high  and  mighty  as  it  can  be  worded,  but  the  fact 
remains. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 


Letters  of  the 


Immediately  after  the  events  of  February  13,  which  have 
been  given,  Mr.  Ward  astonished  the  world  by  taking  The 
Times  into  his  confidence,  in  a  matter  generally  regarded  as  of 
an  essentially  private  character. 

J.  B.  M.  to  A.  M. 

March,  1845. 

You  do  not  mention  Ward's  letter  to  The  Times!  It  is 
the  general  talk.  I  never  read  such  a  thing.  The  idea  of  a 
man  writing  to  a  paper  about  his  marriage,  and  religious 
reasons.    So  complimentary  to  the  lady  ! 

Of  course  this  was  a  circumstance  to  elicit  comment  among 
friends.  One  writes  :  "  Ought  he  not  to  be  '  poor  Ward '  for  the 
future  ?"  going  on  to  say, "  I  can't  quite  analyse  his  last  absurdity. 
.  .  .  Egoism  seems  the  predominant  feature.  Conceive  a  preacher 
of  the  saintly  life  expounding  in  The  Times  !  .  .  .  Will  not  the 
Heads  accept  it  as  a  virtual  recantation  ? "  One  asks,  "  What 
will  Newman  think  of  it?"  Another  answers  J.  B.  M.'s 
letter  already  given :  "  An  astonishing  measure  certainly.  But 
I  regard  him  as  a  sort  of  Frankenstein — a  person  made  differ- 
ently from  other  men;  just  to  teach  us  how  badly  people  get 
on  who  are  guided,  as  they  think,  simply  by  reason ;  despising 
instincts,  sympathies,  and  all  the  nameless  humanities  that 
make  up  a  man."  A  letter  from  a  friend  to  J.  B.  M.,  dated 
August  17,  1845,  contains  the  following  postscript: — 

"Ward  and  his  wife  have  formally,  through  Macmullen, 
announced  their  intention  of  joining  Rome,  giving  a  full  month's 
notice  '  not  to  take  people  by  surprise.' " 

The  year  1845  was  with  J.  B.  M.  one  of  extraordinary  fertility 
and  intellectual  activity.  In  the  midst  of  the  distractions  of 
public  and  private  events  he  wrote  five  articles  for  the  Christian 
Remembrancer,  four  of  which,  "  Recent  Proceedings  at  Oxford  " 
in  the  April  number,  "Blanco  White"  in  July,  "History  of  the 
Russian  Church,"  October,  and  "  The  Recent  Schism,"  which 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


167 


came  out  January  1846,  made  large  demands  on  thought  and 
labour.  This  besides  occasional  pamphlets.  Also  this  year  Tlie 
Guardian  was  planned  by  a  few  friends  like-minded,  among 
whom  James  Mozley  was  one  prominent  as  writer  and  organiser. 
The  Laud  article,  appearing  in  January  1845,  was  recognised  at 
once  as  evidencing  remarkable  powers.  Dr.  South  writes  to 
him : — 

February  19,  1845. 
My  dear  Mr.  Mozley— I  have  read  with  interest  and  much 
admiration  your  development  of  the  character  of  the  great  and 
good  Archbishop.  Pope  said,  after  perusing  the  anonymous 
translation  of  the  two  satires  of  Juvenal,  that  the  author  would 
soon  be  de  terra.  Will  you  do  me  the  favour  of  again  accepting 
the  office  of  Examiner  for  the  Lusby  Scholarship  ? — I  remain 
your  obliged  and  faithful  servant,  M.  J.  PtOUTH. 

The  heading  of  the  article  "Eecent  Proceedings  in  Oxford,"  in 
the  April  Number,  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  ferment  that 
prevailed,  being  a  list  of  thirty-three  pamphlets  and  letters  for 
and  against  the  action  of  the  Heads.  The  article  towards  its 
close  has  a  touching  passage  on  the  attack  on  Mr.  Newman, 
bearing  out  the  feeling  shown  in  the  Private  Correspondence. 

What  the  feeling  was  under  the  pain  and  dread  of  impend- 
ing change  in  the  threatened  loss  of  Mr.  Newman  to  the  English 
Church,  the  following  letters  show  with  telling  force.  My 
brother's  letter  to  Mr.  Scott  (joint  editor  of  the  Christian 
Remembrancer)  has  been  placed  in  my  hand  since  Mr.  Scott's 
death.  His  answer  comes  in  its  place  in  the  correspondence 
of  the  year. 

To  the  Eev.  W.  Scott. 

Oxford,  May  lith,  1845. 
My  dear  Scott, —  .  .  .  Now,  to  touch  on  a  more  serious 
subject,  you  mention  Newman  and  the  Littlemore  company. 
I  am  afraid  it  is  too  true.    Indeed,  one  can  no  longer  speak  in 


Letters  of  the 


the  ambiguous  tone  at  all.  It  is  actually  to  take  place  some 
time  or  other.  One  must  be  prepared  for  it.  I  ought  to  have 
written  and  talked  about  the  subject  with  you  before  now;  but 
it  has  been  such  a  painful  one  to  me,  that  I  have  never  been  able 
to  do  it,  and  even  now  it  is  a  great  effort  to  me  to  write  about 
it.  I  have  known  of  the  tendency  so  long  myself,  indeed,  that 
I  hardly  feel  more  acutely  about  it  now  than  I  did  a  year  ago. 
I  have  got  used  to  the  idea  in  a  way.  But  it  is  something  like 
being  used  to  being  hanged.  I  hardly  expect  it  to  take  place 
this  year,  but  I  cannot  look  for  a  much  longer  respite. 

I  had  a  note  from  Newman  a  month  ago,  immediately  after 
the  C.  R.  He  wrote  about  my  own  article.1  It  had  touched 
him  much,  he  said.  What  he  says  of  himself  is,  that  he  is 
borne  along  by  an  irresistible  course  of  mind  in  the  direction 
he  is  going — that  he  has  withstood  it,  and  yet  it  will  take  him. 
I  don't  know  that  there  is  anything  very  new  in  this.  It  is 
what  most  persons  who  go  through  religious  changes  describe 
themselves  as  undergoing.  But  it  is  the  ground  he  takes ;  he 
cannot  help  the  working  of  his  own  mind. 

So  now  he  has  come  to  a  point  where  I  cannot  follow  him. 
It  is  a  pain,  indeed,  to  be  in  a  church  without  him.  But  I  can- 
not help  that.  No  one,  of  course,  can  prophesy  the  course  of 
his  own  mind ;  but  I  feel  at  present  that  I  could  no  more  leave 
the  English  Church  than  fly.  What  the  upshot  of  this  is  to  be 
we  have  yet  to  see.  We  are  in  a  struggle.  One's  spiritual 
home  is  a  stormy  and  unsettled  one ;  b\it  still  it  is  one's  home. 
At  least  it  is  mine. — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  B.  MOZLEY. 

To  this  letter  Mr.  Scott  replied  at  once.  It  shows  how  deep 
a  current  of  feeling  flowed  under  a  tone  and  manner  charac- 
terised  by  an  airy,  half  cynical  humour. 

May  17  th,  1845. 
My  dear  Mozley, —  .  .  .  The  mention  of  C.  takes  me 
(though,  in  truth,  there  is  no  taking,  for  my  heart  is  always 
there)  to  J.  H.  N.    Of  course,  in  a  way,  one  had  for  some  time 
attempted  to  realise  what  must  be,  but  it  is  just  the  same  as 

1  "  Beceut  Proceedings  in  Oxford." 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


169 


attempting  to  realise  losing  wife  or  child.  I  for  one  have 
always,  in  my  measure,  leant  upon  Newman, — though  I  am 
scarcely  acquainted  with  him — lived  upon  him,  made  him  my 
other  and  better  nature ;  so  the  crash  is  to  me  most  overpower- 
ing. I  dare  not  criticise  any  action  of  his ;  he  is  in  gifts  and 
acquirements  and  in  all  ways  so  infinitely  above  me  that  I  can- 
not argue  about  the  matter,  only  feel,  and  this  of  course  selfishly. 
I  cannot  follow  him.  I  have  no  calls'  that  way.  I  cannot 
think  that  we  are  even  what  we  are  without  God's  especial  pro- 
vidence, and  this  that  we  may  be  the  better,  not  by  individual 
but  by  corporate  action  and  expansion.  .  .  .  Ever  yours  most 
truly,  William  Scott. 

In  acknowledging  a  home  notice  of  the  Blanco  White  article 
in  the  July  number  of  the  Christian  Remembrancer,  James 
writes : — 

.  .  .  One's  great  feeling  in  reading  through  Blanco  White 
was  the  singular  antagonism  in  which  his  mind  was  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  All  that  part,  by  the  way  [criti- 
cising his  own  article],  is  somewhat  clumsy,  and  if  I  had  to 
write  it  over  again,  I  would  put  it  differently.  I  did  not  enter 
into  what  was  Blanco  White's  religion  enough.  When  I  have 
written  an  article,  and  it  is  all  printed,  I  feel  like  a  school- 
boy who  has  sent  up  an  exercise  with  all  sorts  of  mistakes  in 
it,  and  cannot  help  himself:  I  mean  with  respect  to  arrange- 
ment and  elucidation.  You  have  exactly  hit  on  the  very  parts 
that  I  meant  to  be  the  characterising  ones  as  to  B.  W.,  which 
is  satisfactory  to  me. 

The  President  has  had  an  odd  accident — been  bitten  by  a 
madman.  His  gardener  at  Tylehurst  got  into  this  state,  and 
was  secured  in  the  arms  of  two  men.  The  President  went  to 
him,  to  talk  to  him  and  soothe  him,  when  the  man,  with  a  pro- 
digious effort,  meaning  to  embrace  him  affectionately,  sprang 
out  of  his  keepers'  arms,  and  clasped  the  President  to  his  breast, 
biting  a  great  piece  out  of  the  back  of  his  hand  at  the  same 
time.  The  President  has  just  been  giving  me  an  account  of  it, 
laughing  enormously  the  whole  of  the  time.  The  hand  is  going 
on  well. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


1 70 


Letters  of  the 


On  the  4th  August  of  this  year  (1845),  we  lost  our  dear 
father,  whose  health  had  been  for  some  time  the  cause  of 
anxiety ;  every  letter  on  either  side  conveying  inquiries  or  re- 
ports, but  the  end  came  suddenly.  For  some  time  there  is  a 
blank  of  letters,  James  remaining  at  home  with  his  mother 
and  sisters.  The  first  that  occurs  is  the  following  to  his 
sister,  headed  "  Private  : " — 

October,  1845. 

You  will  very  likely  have  heard  from  Jemima  that  J.  H.  N.'s 
secession  has  actually  taken  place.  I  saw  a  letter  or  note  of 
his  to  Keble,  written  just  before  he  was  going  to  be  admitted. 
It  said  he  was  going  to  enter  "  the  only  fold  of  the  Eedeemer, 
the  Church  of  St.  Athanasius."  Keble  thought  there  was  some 
excitement  in  the  tone  of  his  note,  and  was  afraid  for  his  state 
of  mind  afterwards.  I  only  hope  that  the  event  having  taken 
place,  a  good  deal  of  what  constitutes  the  anxiety  and  melan- 
choly of  the  event,  the  uncertainty  and  expectation  of  some- 
thing perpetually  moving  over  one's  head — that  this  part  of 
the  matter  being  at  any  rate  over,  we  are  relieved  of  something, 
though  the  fact  is  a  bitter  one.  It  is  perhaps,  on  the  whole, 
more  comfortable  to  one's  mind  for  a  thing  to  have  taken  place 
than  to  be  continually  dreading  it.  J.  B.  M. 

Writing  from  Winchester  soon  after,  he  tells  his  sister : — 

"  I  spent  a  good  part  of  the  morning  with  Keble  yesterday 
.  .  .  Keble  was  in  better  spirits  than  I  expected,  and  able  to 
talk.  Of  course,  you  may  conjecture  the  subject.  He  seemed 
very  firm  about  the  duty  of  remaining  in  our  Church,  and  did 
not  seem  cast  down,  though  exceedingly  wounded  by  the  recent 
events.  Miss  Keble  is  staying  with  him.  I  was  much  struck 
with  her  appearance.  She  has  quite  Keble's  quick  bright  eye 
in  the  palest,  most  suffering  face  I  ever  saw." 

It  was  on  this  occasion,  no  doubt,  that  J.  B.  M.  consulted 
Mr.  Keble  on  a  plan  for  a  devotional  work  he  had  then  at  heart, 
and  which  is  discussed  in  the  following  thoughtful  letter : — 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


171 


Eev.  J.  Keble  to  J.  B.  M. 

H.  V.,  November  4,  1845. 

My  dear  Mr.  Mozley, — Excuse  my  not  having  written 
sooner.    I  have  been  very  idle,  and  fancied  myself  very  busy. 

Such  a  book  as  you  speak  of  is  surely  wanted ;  and  to  have 
it  well  done  is  exceedingly  important.  I  suppose  any  one  who 
entered  on  it,  with  the  notion  of  compiling,  ought  to  have  his 
mind  well  impressed  with  this  notion  also,  that  mere  compiling 
is  a  very  dull  thing ;  the  passages  one  transcribes  for  such  a 
purpose  as  this  should  flow  from  one's  pen  as  naturally  as  if 
they  were  one's  own.  And  this,  I  suppose,  is  one  part  of  the 
secret  of  those  E.  C.  compilations  which  you  speak  of.  The 
several  passages  had  been  so  meditated  on  and  mixed  up  with 
the  compiler's  thoughts,  that  he  could  scarce  distinguish  the 
one  from  the  other.  And  this  seems  to  make  a  great  difficulty 
in  finding  a  proper  person  to  do  the  work.  It  should  be  some 
one  familiar,  in  the  way  I  have  now  said,  with  our  Andreweses, 
Wilsons,  Taylors,  Kens,  etc.,  and  also  able  to  supply  and 
connect  where  his  text  failed,  in  the  same  sort  of  way  as 
Aquinas  in  the  Aurea  Catena,  so  as  that  the  difference  of 
material  and  workmanship  should  not  be  observable.  On  the 
whole,  I  think  it  almost  more  probable  that  a  person  may  be 
found  to  do  the  thing  well,  originally,  than  such  a  compiler  as 
I  now  speak  of.  Would  it  be  a  good  plan  to  speak  to  two  or 
three  persons,  to  try  what  they  could  do  for  a  certain  time, 
either  in  the  way  of  writing  or  compiling  ?  If  a  certain 
number  of  earnest,  thoughtful  minds  were  employed  thus  for 
one  twelvemonth,  I  can  imagine  a  very  good  book  or  books 
resulting.  It  would  be  well,  perhaps,  to  choose  persons  of 
different  tones  of  thought  and  habits  of  life.  But  one  essential 
requisite  is  that  there  should  be  no  hurrying,  nor  any  sensation 
of  writing  for  a  bookseller,  or  against  time,  or  to  counteract 
Borne,  or  to  meet  a  call,  or  anything  but  pure  desire  to  edify 
one's-self  and  others — love  of  the  subject  and  of  the  work.  I 
don't,  of  course,  mean  that  we  must  wait  till  such  purity  of 
motive  is  to  be  found,  but  I  do  mean  that  in  proportion  as  it  is 
wanting,  the  book  (I  should  fear)  would  fail.  If  anything  else 
occurs  worth  writing  I  will  write  again. 


1 72 


Letters  of  the 


I  am  anxious  to  know  about  the  Leeds  movement ;  more  so 
from  something  I  have  heard  this  evening,  as  though  things 
had  fallen  out  rather  to  Pusey's  discouragement. — Ever  yours 
affectionately,  J.  Keble. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  14,  1845. 

The  great  event  of  the  term  has  been  the  consecration  of 
the  church  at  Leeds.  Pusey  seems  to  be  quite  satisfied  and 
impressed  with  the  way  in  which  it  went  off,  and  the  good  feel- 
ing and  unanimity  among  the  clergy  assembled.  Hook  was 
exceedingly  hearty,  though  very  nervous  beforehand,  and 
apprehensive.  He  had  a  declaration  against  Popery  ready  to 
take  off  the  effect  of  the  meeting  in  that  direction,  but  he  gave 
it  up.  He  was  so  exceedingly  pleased  when  it  was  all  over, 
and  had  passed  off  well,  that  his  wife  thought  something  was 
the  matter  with  him  ;  but  it  turned  out  to  be  simply  joy  and 
satisfaction.  The  Bishop,  too,  was  dreadfully  nervous,  and,  in 
fact,  one  would  suppose  Pusey  was  a  lion,  or  some  beast  of 
prey,  people  seem  to  have  been  so  afraid  of  him.  The  Bishop 
was  afraid  of  being  entrapped  into  anything,  and  objected  to 
this  and  that.  Among  the  rest,  he  saw  on  one  of  the  doors  the 
sentence — "  Pray  for  the  sinner  who  built  this  church,"  and 
required  evidence  that  the  sinner  was  alive  before  he  conse- 
crated. What  was  the  greatest  pity  was,  the  sacramental  plate 
did  not  appear  at  the  consecration.  There  was  an  inscription 
on  it  that  implied  a  prayer  for  the  dead.  It  was,  in  fact,  the 
gift  of  Lucy  Pusey,  and  her  name  was,  I  believe,  inscribed  upon 
it.  The  Bishop  says  he  will  allow  anything  that  the  law  allows  ; 
and  I  believe  there  is  nothing  against  the  law  in  this  inscrip- 
tion.   The  point  is  not  determined. 

These  little  differences  went  on  behind,  and  not  in  public, 
and  Pusey  was  not  annoyed,  and  took  them  very  well.  He  and 
Hook  seem  to  have  been  very  cordial  together.  Henry  Wilber- 
force,  who  was  there,  says  he  never  saw  Pusey  come  out  so 
before.  By  the  way,  he  does  not  preach  this  term,  his  turn 
not  coming  on  till  next  February. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


173 


The  last  letter  of  this  eventful  year  shows  what  new  and 
strange  duties  were  devolving  upon  him  : — 

J.  B.  M.  to  his  Sister. 

Clays,  December  30,  1845. 
I  am  working  here  at  C.  R.  work — just  seeing  through  the 
press  the  most  disagreeable  article  I  have  ever  had  to  write — 
one,  namely,  on  Newman's  secession.1  It  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  notice  the  fact,  and  it  fell  to  me  to  do  it.  I  could  not 
help  myself.  The  article  will,  perhaps,  have  a  decisiveness  of 
tone  to  many  ears,  which  (as  being  a  new  kind  of  tone  to  use 
in  any  sort  of  connection  with  Newman)  will  annoy  some 
people.  I  expect  it  will,  but  the  fact  is  not  to  be  avoided  that 
a  new  relation  is  begun  between  Newman  and  the  English 
Church,  and  somebody  must  be  the  person  to  express  that  new 
relation.  I  have  had  the  office,  and  a  most  disagreeable  one  it 
has  been,  as  I  say.  But  I  feel  strongly  that,  staying  in  the 
English  Church,  as  I  do,  I  stay  to  support  her,  and  not  to  give 
her  up,  or  stand  loosely  by  her.  There  would  be  no  excuse  for 
staying  on  this  latter  ground,  after  this  secession.  The  tone, 
however,  of  the  article  I  have  carefully  guarded  against  being 
anything  more  decisive,  nor  do  I  think  that  N.  can  possibly 
complain  of  the  view  I  take  of  him. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

The  article  thus  announced  is  read  eagerly  at  home,  and 
reassuring  comments  are  sent.  Mrs.  John  Mozley,  reading  and 
talking  it  over  with  his  sisters,  writes  to  J.  B.  M. : — 

"  I  do  feel  so  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  manner  in  which 
you  have  fulfilled  your  difficult  and  painful  task.  I  had  quite 
dreaded  to  see  the  case  coolly  discussed  in  print.  Yet  I  felt, 
both  from  kindness  and  ability,  you  were  the  person  to  under- 
take it.  .  .  .  However,  in  some  respects,  J.  H.  N.  would  not  agree 
with  your  view,  I  am  sure  he  would  estimate  and  feel  grateful 

1  To  this  labour  he  had  been  impelled  by  his  fellow-editor,  Mr.  Scott, 
who,  writing  on  November  8,  underscores  the  following  words: — "  It  is 
expected  of  us  to  take  a  line  about  Newman,  and  we  cannot  avoid  it." 


174 


Letters  of  the 


for  the  kindness  and  appreciation  of  his  mind  and  powers, 
which  the  opening  especially  of  your  article  shows.  You  must 
also  allow  me  to  express  how  much  I  admire  and  sympathise 
with  the  warm-hearted  manner  in  which  you  stand  forward  as 
a  champion  of  our  poor  assailed  Church.  It  seems  a  shameful 
thing  to  have  to  assert  even  her  very  existence,  and  how  pain- 
ful to  see  people  speak  with  only  half  a  heart." 

My  sister  Maria,  staying  then  at  Cholderton,  delivers  a 
message  from  Mrs.  Thomas  Mozley  : — 

"  Harriet  likes  your  article  very  much,  and  admires  you  in  it — 
but  she  says  there  was  a  time  before  you  knew  him  (J.  H.  N.) 
when  he  had  a  thorough  attachment  to  our  Church  that  you 
do  not  give  him  credit  for ;  feeling  himself  completely  in  our 
Church.  She  mentions  particularly  a  course  of  sermons  on  the 
Liturgy,  preached,  I  think,  about  '29,  which  she  liked  exceed- 
ingly, and  always  entreated  him  to  publish,  but  he  never  did." 

To  his  Sister. 

January  16,  1846. 
I  have  never  thanked  you  and  Jemima  for  your  letters,  which 
were  very  satisfactory  to  me.  It  was,  of  course,  an  anxious 
article  to  write,  and  one  is  very  much  relieved  by  hearing  such 
opinions  of  it.  I  had  a  note  from  Wilson  of  Ampfield  the  other 
day,  who  tells  me  Keble  is  quite  satisfied,  which  is  a  great 
comfort.    He  says  "  N.  ought  not  to  be  hurt  by  it." 

The  following  relates  to  Dr.  Pusey's  preparing  to  take  his 
turn,  after  his  two  years'  suspension  : — 

You  see  there  is  a  dead-set  made  on  Pusey  by  Golightly. 
The  Heads  are  taking  G.'s  letters  into  consideration.  I  hardly 
think  they  will  proceed  to  action,  however,  upon  it.  There  is  no 
tangible  ground  in  the  letter  of  Pusey  in  the  English  Churchman, 
and  though  they  talk  of  a  statute  which  requires  a  preacher  to 
be  approbatus  by  the  Vice-Chancellor,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
Pusey  comes  under  it ;  because  he  preaches  on  a  special  statute, 
which  commands  all  Heads  of  Houses,  Canons  of  Ch.  Ch.,  and 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


175 


Eegius  Professors  to  preach  in  the  course  of  the  year.  Any- 
how it  would  be  a  consummate  act  of  despotism  which  would  be 
simply  claiming  the  pulpit  all  the  year  round  for  the  V.-C.'s 
own  friends.  Pusey  is  now  at  Brighton  writing  his  sermon, 
very  carefully.  He  intends  to  avoid  giving  any  handle,  if  he 
possibly  can.  He  is  afraid  it  will  be  very  long.  I  think  that 
may  be  considered  pretty  certain ;  but  nobody  can  complain 
after  a  two  years'  suspension.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Oxford,  Epiphany,  184G. 
My  dear  C, — I  read  your  article  ["Brittany,"  Christian 
Remembrancer,  January  1846],  in  the  train,  coming  down.  You 
have  certainly  managed  to  create  a  distinct  image  of  Brittany. 
It  is  quite  a  whole.  One  has  the  idea  that  no  other  district  in 
the  world  would  have  furnished  that  precise  picture  but 
Brittany.  Also  that  view  of  Faith  has  so  much  in  it,  that  you 
ought  to  make  more  of  it,  sometime  or  other.  I  could  fancy 
it  working  up  into  something.  The  same  of  "  the  view  of  the 
powers  which  God's  wisdom  has  in  these  last  days  placed  in 
the  hands  of  man."  They  are  views  which  seem  to  explain 
our  present  state  of  things — the  former,  as  showing  that 
mediteval  faith  was  not  so  much  better  than  ours,  as  in  one 
aspect  it  seems  ;  the  latter,  as  showing  that  our  want  of  that 
aboriginal  genuine  faith  has  something  to  say  in  its  defence 
and  can  point  to  a  new  dispensation  of  things  which  in  some 
measure  justifies  or  explains  it. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister  Maria. 

Oxford,  February  1,  1846. 
My  dear  Maria, — I  have  just  come  from  Pusey's  sermon. 
It  was  very  grand,  intense,  and  impressive — and  went  on  with 
a  great  swing,  as  Pusey's  sermons  do.  After  nearly  three 
years'  silence,  it  was  strange  hearing  his  voice  again.  I  should 
think  the  greater  part  of  the  audience  had  never  heard  him 
before.  There  was  perfect  stillness,  and  the  mass  was  as  dense 
as  it  could  be.    The  procession  of  Heads  was  obliged  to  cut 


i76 


Letters  of  the 


straight  from  the  transept  to  their  seats,  instead  of  going  all 
round,  and  down  the  middle  aisle,  as  they  usually  do.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  sermon  to  lay  hold  of,  that  I  could  see. 
The  subject  was  Confession  and  the  Power  of  the  Keys.  He 
had  such  a  huge  weight  of  Church  authority  with  him,  that 
he  seemed  to  occupy  the  whole  ground  and  possess  the  building 
for  himself.  He  seemed  to  turn  the  vast  tide  of  clamour,  which 
has  been  trying  to  disconnect  us  from  the  Church  so  long,  upon 
the  other  side.    This  in  effect  I  only  mean. 

The  sermon  itself  was  simply  practical,  and  put  forward  the 
plain  statement  in  our  formularies,  and  worked  them  out.  The 
few  I  have  seen  since  all  think  there  is  nothing  to  lay  hold  of. 
But  that  it  will  create  great  disgust  I  have  no  doubt.  The 
only  part  I  can  fancy  as  being  fastened  on  is  where  he  spoke 
of  College  Tutors  as  men  who  might  enter  into  more  spiritual 
relations  with  those  under  them.  He  guarded  himself,  how- 
ever, from  any  immediate,  sudden  application  of  what  he 
said,  and  talked  about  time  and  waiting.  I  saw  him  just  after 
the  sermon ;  he  was  in  very  good  spirits. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — The  sermon  will  come  out  immediately. 

To  his  Sister. 

February  9,  1846. 
Pusey's  sermon  is  not  out  yet.  It  is  encasing  itself,  as  most 
of  his  do,  with  notes,  and  making  a  regular  fortification.  What 
is  said  of  it  in  high  quarters  here,  is  that  "  it  is  much  to  be 
lamented,  but  not  to  be  complained  of."  Pusey  is  in  high 
spirits — good  spirits  rather;  and  I  think  a  little  feeling  of 
satisfaction  at  having  silenced  his  silencers  so  effectually,  might 
a  little  mingle  with  his  feelings. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

In  January  of  this  year  The  Guardian  was  launched  into 
the  world. 

To  his  Sisteb. 

Oxford,  April  4,  1846. 
...  I  mentioned  The  Guardian  in  my  note,  I  think.  It  gains 
notice  in  good  quarters,  and  that  is  all  I  can  say.  Professor  Owen 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


177 


(a  well-known  man  in  the  scientific  world)  was  much  struck 
with  the  review  on  The  Natural  History  of  the  Vestiges  of 
the  Creation.  Acland  is  very  vigorous  about  it.  But  there 
wants  the  regular  machinery  for  circulation.  Then  it  does  not 
appeal  to  any  one  class  as  other  things  do.  Then  people  are 
so  very  touchy  and  peppery  about  a  new  paper,  and  think  it  a 
function  of  themselves,  which  the  longer  it  goes  on  it  gets  the 
less  to  be. 

There  is  an  article  in  the  Dublin  Review  in  answer,  in  a 
great  measure,  to  mine  in  the  C.  R.  of  last  January.  Its  line 
is  not  an  able  one,  which  is  rather  to  dissociate  J.  H.  N's 
influence  in  the  late  move,  and  make  it  out  to  have  been 
a  coincidence  in  a  number  of  minds  equally  at  the  same  time. 
It  would  have  been  abler  to  have  said  Newman  was  the  mover 
— and  he  was  a  providential  one — as  a  line  of  argument. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  May  12,  1846. 
Dear  Anne, —  ...  I  stayed  in  London  till  Saturday  after- 
noon. I  was  unlucky  in  missing  Dr.  Mill,  whom  I  called  on 
at  Lambeth.  I  had  a  long  talk  with  Mr.  Matliison  at  the 
Mint  on  the  subject  of  education.  He  says  the  report  is,  the 
League,  having  succeeded  in  their  Corn-Law  movement,  are 
going  to  commence  an  Educational  one,  and  he  was  going  to 
attend  a  meeting  of  the  National  Society,  which  had  been 
summoned  in  the  alarm  of  the  report. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

J.  B.  M.  to  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  May  20,  184G. 
On  Saturday  I  went  down  to  East  Farleigh,  partly  on  pleasure, 
partly  on  business,  to  try  to  persuade  H.  W.  to  write  an  article 
I  wanted  written  for  the  Christian  Remembrancer.  He  was  in 
London,  and  did  not  come  till  after  my  arrival.  His  mother 
was  the  only  one  in  the  house  when  I  came.  My  ring  at  the 
door  she  supposed,  of  course,  to  be  her  son's ;  then,  when  I  had 
sufficiently  made  it  appear  otherwise,  another  ring ;  and  neither 
was  this  her  son,  but  Mr.  Spooner,  the  member  for  Birmingham, 

M 


1 78 


Letters  of  the 


her  brother-in-law,  also  an  unexpected  arrival.  I  felt  I  was 
going  to  appear  awkward  at  finding  myself  interrupting  their 
tete-a-tete,  but  found  I  had  not  much  reason  for  it.  For  any  one 
connected  with  the  Wilberforces  is  used  to  interruptions  and 
juxtapositions  of  all  kinds.  Mr.  Spooner  is  a  good-natured, 
violent  Protestant — a  mixture  of  an  Evangelical  aud  John  Bull, 
very  active,  very  talkative,  and  apparently  exceedingly  fond  of 
business.  He  talked  with  great  gusto  of  the  committees  at 
which  he  has  to  work  incessantly,  and  enjoys  it.  He  railed 
furiously  at  the  whole  House,  declaring  any  600  men  in  the 
streets  were  to  be  preferred  to  the  present  Parliament.  On 
the  whole,  however,  he  enjoys  his  position.  He  is  a  strong- 
Protectionist,  but  on  some  crotchety  currency  principle.  All 
Sunday  religious  arguments  were  going  on  with  good-natured 
vehemence  between  him  and  his  nephew,  who,  by  the  way,  I 
should  say,  came  late  on  Saturday  night  with  his  Johnny,  who 
had  been  sick  on  the  way,  after  three  days'  dissipation  in  London, 
and  was  put  to  bed  and  slept  eighteen  hours,  namely,  till  about 
five  the  next  afternoon.  Old  Mrs.  Wilberforce  (Mrs.  H.  W.  was 
in  London)  has  to  keep  the  old  ground  and  the  new  one  ; — her 
husband's  and  her  sons', — and  harmonise  them  ;  which  she  does 
certainly  very  well.  She  is  such  an  exceedingly  mild,  humble, 
pleasing  old  lady.  1  have  met  few  like  her.  She  was  shocked 
at  her  brother  preferring  Unitarians  to  Roman  Catholics.  H.  W. 
says  she  protests  against  him  sometimes  in  private,  and  always 
takes  his  part  openly. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  July  1846. 
My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  The  fate  of  The  Guardian  is,  I  am 
afraid,  sealed.  The  circulation  keeps  obstinately  stationary, 
and  B.  has  given  his  decided  opinion  that,  after  notice  given,  it 
must  be  dropped.  I  have  a  curious  mixture  of  feelings  on  the 
subject,  partly  of  humiliation  at  having  to  confess  a  most  com- 
plete failure,  and  partly  of  relief  that  no  more  writing  will  be 
required  for  it. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  announcement  that  The  Guardian  must  be  discontinued 
for  want  of  support  excited  warm  remonstrances  in  certain 


Rev.  J.  D.  Mozley,  D.D. 


1 79 


quarters,  where  the  need  of  a  Church  newspaper,  and  the  satis- 
factory manner  in  which  The  Guardian  promised  to  supply 
that  need,  was  strongly  felt.  There  survives  a  packet  of  letters 
from  Churchmen  of  high  name  and  credit,  pressing  its  con- 
tinuance. Amongst  these  letters  are  two  of  very  urgent  and 
friendly  appeal  from  the  present  Bishop  of  Lincoln.  Soon 
after  J.  B.  M.  reports  : — 

The  Guardian,  it  has  been  resolved,  is  to  go  on,  to  complete 
its  year  of  trial ;  but  not  till  after  much  consultation  and 
doubt.  I  think,  on  the  whole,  it  is  best  it  should,  as  it  would 
have  shown  pusillanimity  to  give  up  before. 

A  turn  of  fortune,  however,  soon  came.  A  friend  and  con- 
tributor writes  to  J.  B.  M. : — 

October  23,  1846. 
Sharpe  and  R.  too  are  in  great  force  about  the  G.    At  last 
we  have  got  cpuoted  in  a  morning  paper,  Daily  News,  by  help  of 
Le  Verrier's  letter.    We  may  be  caught  out  in  some  floor,  but  if 
we  are  not,  I  shall  be  very  proud  of  the  planet  all  my  life  long. 

[If  the  writer  of  the  letter  is  also  the  writer  of  the  article  in 
question,  it  may  be  said  that  he  is  not  subject  to  "floors."] 

A  little  book  had  been  sent  J.  B.  M.,  in  which  was  the  nar- 
rative of  Gertrude  Von  der  Wart : — 

November  6,  1846. 
My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  Gertrude  Von  der  Wart  is  quite 
unique.  I  never  read  anything  more  beautiful.  You  have 
sometimes  said  you  want  to  have  an  idea  of  what  Homer  really 
is.  Now  that  is  very  like  Homer,  of  course  mutatis  mutandis. 
There  is  the  same  sort  of  pure  pathos,  so  very  pungent,  because 
so  very  truthful.  I  certainly  get  more  and  more  to  think  that 
imagination  is  quite  an  inferior  part  of  poetry.  And  Homer 
pleases  because  he  exists  altogether  in  a  higher  region  than 
that  of  imagination — in  that  of  absolute  truth,  the  fact  itself  of 
high  and  pure  feeling. 


i8o 


Letters  of  the 


There  has  been  a  grand  centenary  at  Ch.  Ch,  but  dread  fully 
mismanaged,  they  say :  the  Dean  not  earing  at  all  about  it, 
and  not  letting  those  who  did,  manage  it ;  so  that  hardly  any- 
body has  been  asked.  Sir  E.  Inglis  came  down,  and  I  believe 
Gladstone. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  year  1846  brings  round,  at  precisely  the  same  season, 
notice  of  another  painful  task  completed  :  a  task  such  as  befell 
J.  B.  M.  in  1845. 

Temple,  December  30,  1846. 
My  dear  Anne, — The  C.  R.  will  explain,  when  it  comes 
out,  why  I  have  not  been  very  communicative  lately.  You 
will  see  there  is  an  article  of  prodigious  length  on  a  subject 
which  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  notice,  i.e.  Newman's  book. 
It  is  odd  that  such  a  task  should  have  devolved  upon  me. 
There  is  a  sort  of  fatality  in  these  things;  and  Oriel  seems 
destined  to  produce  disagreement  among  friends.  But  so  it  is. 
The  book  must  be  noticed,  and  there  was  no  one  to  do  it  but 
myself.  Not  that  I  have  any  delicacy  on  the  subject,  for 
J.  H.  N.  has  of  course  begun  the  difference,  and  that  being  the 
case,  it  is  simply  a  fact  that  one  is  opposed  to  him ;  and 
whether  one  is  silent  or  speaks  it  is  all  the  same  really.  It 
has  been  most  unpleasant  work,  however,  not  only  on  this 
account  but  from  the  argumentative  style  of  writing  one  has  to 
take  up — most  difficult  and  most  dry.  The  thing  has  been 
hanging  over  me  now  for  a  year,  and  there  is  a  relief  that  it  is 
over.  Not  that  the  controversy  itself  is  over,  for  controversy 
is  in  its  own  nature  endless.  But  one  may  look  about  one  a 
good  deal  before  one  has  another  call  to  enter  the  lists.  .  .  . 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Such  things  cannot  be  helped;  must  be  done;  somebody 
must  do  them ;  and  the  line  of  thought  was  James  Mozley's 
line :  but  such  long  task-work  of  antagonism  towards  a  dear 
and  most  true  friend  leaves  effects  to  be  sighed  over — effects 
which  those  escape  on  whom  the  ungrateful  task  does  not  fall. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


181 


To  his  Sister. 

January  9,  1847. 
My  dear  Anne, — I  want  to  tell  you  how  much  pleased  I 
am  with  my  Stowlangtoft  visit.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rickards  are 
certainly  a  pair  such  as  one  does  not  often  see — quite  com- 
plete and  perfect ;  such  cheerfulness,  simplicity,  and  cleverness, 
all  going  together,  are  quite  a  remarkable  mixture.  I  had  never 
seen  Mr.  R.  before  to  have  any  continued  conversation  with  him. 
He  struck  me  much  from  the  quantity  of  information  he  has, 
and  his  sharp  neat  way  of  always  expressing  what  he  wants, 
and  bringing  things  to  a  point.  The  way  in  which  he  ques- 
tioned me  too,  and  got  information  himself  (not  much  from 
me),  was  just  the  same.  He  puts  just  the  right  questions, 
and  such  as,  if  answered,  would  give  him  the  best  view  of  what 
he  is  asking  about.  Mrs.  R.'s  perpetual  flow  of  spirits  and 
benevolence  is  quite  charming.  I  am  glad  I  have  been  there 
.  .  .  Maria  will  have  told  you  about  our  doings  and  visitings. — 
Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  February  9,  1847. 
My  dear  Anne, — .  .  .  I  called  on  Pusey,  who  is  looking 
tolerably  cheerful  after  all  his  reverses  lately.  He  is  about 
a  commentary  on  the  minor  prophets ;  part  of  a  general 
commentary  on  the  whole  Bible,  which  is  now  thought  of,  not 
all  from  the  same  person,  but  one  taking  one  part,  another 
another.  Pusey  intends  to  make  it  a  popular  commentary,  and 
to  give  the  sense  of  the  Fathers  without  references  or  (generally) 
extracts.  Whether  he  will  keep  to  his  intention  when  it  comes 
to,  is  perhaps  doubtful,  he  is  so  fond  of  the  quoting  system. 
He  says  a  new  commentary  is  the  proper  way  of  meeting  the 
Rationalists. 

Mr.  Hayes  called  on  me  the  other  day.  He  is  a  military- 
looking  man,  very  simple,  and  hard  in  look  and  speech,  but  a 
man  of  respectable  feeling,  and  well-disposed.  He  has  been 
magistrate  in  India,  and  lived  in  stations  where  he  was  quite 
out  of  the  reach  of  Europeans,  who  are  a  mere  handful  in  India, 


182 


Letters  of  the 


and  the  great  mass  of  the  native  population  living  by  them- 
selves, and  with  their  religion  and  customs  in  full  play,  and 
nothing  to  disturb  them.  I  asked  him  about  Conversion  ;  he 
said  the  great  mass  were  absolutely  untouched.  The  Europeans 
had  not  in  fact  come  in  contact  with  them.  .  .  I  asked  him 
about  the  influence  of  the  old  superstitions  on  the  Hindoo  popu- 
lation as  a  whole,  saying  that  I  had  understood  it  was  less  than 
it  had  been,  and  that  the  Brahmans  were  getting  Liberal.  He 
contradicted  this,  speaking  from  his  own  experience,  and 
described  the  perfect  immovability  of  a  Bengalee  Priest  rather 
well,  so  soft  and  silky  a  person,  that  everything  would  melt 
like  butter  in  his  mouth,  but  you  might  as  well  try  to  shake 
a  mountain  as  to  persuade  him.  .  .  . 

Sir  Robert  Inglis  has  written  to  the  Heads  of  Houses,  noti- 
fying on  the  part  of  the  Government  that  they  are  going  to  look 
into  the  Universities.  .  .  .  Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

To  ins  Sister. 

May  20,  1847. 

...  I  was  in  London  yesterday  on  electioneering  business, 
and  Gladstone's  committee  seem  to  be  in  tolerable  spirits.  I 
did  not  see  any  of  the  great  men,  but  only  my  own  friends, 
the  committee  itself ;  the  whole  side  are  as  odd  a  mixture  as 
you  can  conceive.  London  Puseyites,  who  atone  for  their  reli- 
gion by  their  rank,  mixing  with  Tyler,  Hume  Spry,  Saunders 
of  the  Charterhouse,  Hallam  (the  Whig  historian),  etc.,  and 
appended  to  this  an  Oxford  committee  of  barefaced  Puseyites, 
whom  nobody  in  Oxford  but  themselves  will  join. 

May  30. 

The  electioneering  excitement  has  gone  down  a  good  deal.  I 
have  very  little  to  do  with  the  details  of  it,  and  do  not  know 
what  the  state  of  votes  on  our  side  is.  I  believe  Gladstone  is 
anxious  to  come  in  ;  and  his  dignity  has  so  far  given  way  that 
he  goes  about  speechifying  now  at  different  places. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — Whoever  wants  the  book  on  painting  [Buskin's]  to 
receive  due  notice,  must  write  a  review  of  it  himself.    I  have 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mosley,  D.D. 


183 


got  the  experience  by  my  C.  R.  labours,  that  nobody  will  write 
on  a  subject  of  another  person's  suggestion. 

The  following  history  of  the  Gladstone  Election  was  written 
to  his  friend  then  abroad : — 

Oxford,  August  6,  1847. 

My  dear  Church, — You  will  have  seen  by  the  English 
papers  the  termination  of  our  contest.  We  are  of  course 
elevated  on  the  occasion.  On  meeting  Michell  to-day  in  the 
streets  I  was  patronising  and  conciliatory ;  assured  him  that 
he  would  not  regret  the  choice  the  University  had  made.  It 
is  rather  curious  that  I  do  not  think  at  any  one  time  through- 
out the  affair,  which  has  now  been  going  for  three  months  and 
more,  have  the  expectations  of  our  side  been  equal  to  what  they 
rationally  might  have  been.  The  imagination  was  so  strongly 
affected  the  other  way.  It  was  considered  at  first  a  sort  of  Trac- 
tarian  puerility  by  many,  our  bringing  forward  Gladstone  at  all, 
so  Utopian  did  the  chance  of  his  success  appear.  Wall  of 
Balliol  was  on  Cardwell'3  committee.  He  laughed  at  the  idea 
of  Gladstone,  and  talked  of  400  votes — more  by  the  way,  they 
say  by  150,  than  Cardwell  got.  The  most  liberal  set  us  at  600. 
Altogether  a  sort  of  stupor  prevailed  on  the  subject,  in  the  midst 
of  which,  however,  a  most  capital  London  committee  was  formed 
and  began  to  work ;  Tyler  being  one  of  the  first  to  join.  Eogers 
described  the  melancholy  meeting  of  three  or  four  Gladstonians 
the  first  day  or  two,  where  they  sat  expecting.  At  last  Tyler 
came — advenisti  0  desiclerabilis !  They  felt  as  if  they  had 
caught  the  very  largest  salmon  with  melted  butter,  lobster  sauce 
and  all.  Then  Hume  Spry,  then  Archdeacon  Hale.  I  am  tell- 
ing you,  I  fear,  what  people  have  told  you  before,  in  all  this. 
However,  the  London  committee,  which  was  out  on  the  Satur- 
day after  the  Tuesday  of  the  first  communication  of  Estcourt's 
retirement,  was  a  great  gain,  and  made  an  impression.  I  could 
see  it  producing  an  effect. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  was  Gladstone  con- 
senting so  immediately  to  be  brought  forward.  The  people  in 
London  had  almost  come  to  the  resolution  that  he  was  an  impos- 
sible card — i.e.  too  strong,  I  mean,  in  a  party  point  of  view  for 


Letters  of  the 


success.  And  they  bad  sent  down  Bernard  with  Sir  William 
Heathcote's  name,  to  look  about.  In  the  meantime  a  carrier  from 
us  here — i.e.  H.  J.  Coleridge,  crossed  Bernard  on  the  road  with 
Gladstone's  name.  Coleridge,  as  soon  as  he  had  arrived  in  town, 
heard  of  Bernard's  mission  with  Heathcote's  name,  and  was 
giving  Gladstone.up.  But  Hawkins  and  his  father  told  him  to  go 
to  Rogers.  He  went.  R.  sent  him  to  Northcote.  Northcote  had 
an  hour's  conversation  with  Gladstone,  at  the  end  of  which  G. 
was  a  declared  candidate.  So  the  next  day,  Wednesday,  we  had 
a  meeting  here — i.e.  in  Magdalen — Gladstone's  being  the  name. 
Sewell  tried  to  extinguish  us  with  a  speech,  and  threatened 
his  fiercest  opposition.  But  nevertheless  we  kept  to  our  man. 
I  must  confess  to  have  felt  some  most  uncomfortable  qualms 
throughout  the  first  outset  of  the  contest.  To  have  to  choose 
between  two  men  like  G.  and  Sir  W.  H,  gave  a  most  uncomfor- 
table responsibility.  And  one  heard  on  all  sides,  Oh  !  we  should 
have  no  objection  to  Sir  William  Hcathcote.  In  fact  his  name 
was  mentioned  actually  at  the  first  meeting  at  Ogilvie's,  who 
ultimately  chose  Round ;  so  apparently  certain  we  should  have 
been  of  him,  had  we  fixed  on  him.  Of  course  it  would  have  been 
a  different  thing  altogether  from  having  Gladstone;  but  he 
would  have  been  a  very  good  man.  Let  us  hope  for  him  one 
day  as  Gladstone's  colleague. 

You  should  hear  Johnson ;  he  says  it  is  "  the  perfection  of 
beauty."  First,  we  have  bowled  out  eleven  Heads  of  Houses 
and  Cardwell.  Secondly,  we  have  bowled  them  all  out  again, 
and  Round.  And  thirdly — which  is  a  spice  for  the  simply 
malignant  to  relish — Round  himself  has  lost  his  seat  in  Essex 
in  consequence. 

The  Provost  has  behaved  very  characteristically.  He  has 
been  for  once  in  his  life  fairly  perplexed ;  and  he  has  doubled 
and  doubled  again,  and  shifted,  and  crept  into  holes ;  at  last 
vanished  up  some  dark  crevice,  and  nothing  was  seen  but  his 
tail.  One  thought  one  was  to  see  no  more  of  him,  when,  on 
one  of  the  polling  mornings,  he  suddenly  emerged,  like  a  rat 
out  of  a  haystack,  and  voted  for  Round.  The  Heads,  in  fact, 
have  been  thoroughly  inefficient.  The  election  has  literally 
gone  on  without  them.    They  have  done  nothing.  Apparently 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


185 


they  were  sufficiently  afraid  of  Gladstone's  success  not  to  like 
the  chance  of  meeting  him  afterwards  as  declared  opponents  : 
and  they  could  not  bring  themselves  to  vote  for  him,  so  they 
have  been  mere  individual  Roundites.  One  has  hardly  felt 
their  existence  throughout  the  contest.  What  do  you  think  of 
Woolcombe  of  Balliol  actually  canvassing  the  Provost  for 
Gladstone  at  the  commencement !  I  should  as  soon  have 
thought  of  engaging  with  a  lion.  Nevertheless,  the  Provost  was 
most  courteous.  W.  said  we  did  not  wish  to  make  a  religious 
contest.  "  Yes,"  said  the  Provost,  "  but  Mr.  Gladstone  cannot 
help  having  his  religious  views."  Then  Woolcombe  asked  him, 
Whether  he  considered  our  position  at  all  a  factious  one — a 
committee  of  M.A.s  bringing  forward  their  own  man  without 
any  connection  with  the  Heads  ?  "  Oh,  no — not  the  least ;  it 
would  be  quite  ridiculous  to  think  so." 

It  is  quite  amusing  to  see  how  the  contest  has  brought  out 
some  men :  H.  Coleridge,  for  example.  He  has  been  most 
useful  throughout,  and  shown  himself  quite  knowing.  Then 
H.  Harris  has  done  a  great  deal  among  our  young  Magdalen 
men,  and  has  quite  surprised  us  all  as  a  canvasser.  Wool- 
combe of  Balliol  has  been  great  too.  Arthur  Haddan  is  an  old 
canvasser,  and  his  experience  in  the  Williams  and  Garbett  case 
gave  him  a  name.  But  he  has  kept  up  his  reputation  most 
decidedly.  The  astonishing  perseverance  with  which  he  probed 
the  terra  incognita  of  names  in  the  University  Calendar  was 
wonderful.  There  were  only  600  at  last  of  which  he  could 
give  no  account  at  all.  I  begin  to  doubt  whether  they  exist 
myself.  If  they  did,  Haddan  would  certainly  have  got  at  them. 
Greswell  was  most  characteristic,  only  his  zeal  was  a  too 
sanguine  one.  He  was  obliged  to  be  kept  in  ignorance,  as  far 
as  was  possible,  of  the  number  of  votes,  and  everything, 
because  he  went  and  boasted  so  immensely.  As  soon  as  we 
had  got  800  votes  he  thought  the  contest  over. 

What  a  strange  affair  this  is  of  the  Nottingham  election ! 
John  Walter  was  elected  the  day  or  two  after  his  father's  death, 
quite  without  his  knowledge.  The  first  intimation  he  had  of 
it  was  in  the  report  from  the  Nottingham  Reporter,  which  came 
for  insertion  in  The  Times.    It  seems  that  the  old  gentleman's 


Letters  of  the 


death  produced  a  sudden  sensation,  and  that  out  of  gratitude 
they  instantly  resolved  to  elect  his  son.  J.  W.  and  H.  W. 
were  both  here  voting,  though  within  two  or  three  days  of 
their  father's  death.  The  public-duty  view  prevailed.  When 
shall  we  see  you  again  ?  I  send  this  by  your  brother. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P.,  to  J.  B.  M. 

August  6,  1848. 
My  dear  Me.  Mozley, — Your  letter  gives  me  peculiar 
pleasure  by  the  announcement  it  contains  that  you  believe 
many  who  voted  against  me  in  the  recent  contest  are  by  no 
means  broken-hearted  at  the  issue.  But  I  hope,  in  the  anxiety 
to  soften  or  remove  adverse  prepossession  from  the  minds  of 
any  of  those  who  are  now  become  my  constituents,  I  shall  not 
lose  sight  of  that  deeper  debt  which  I  owe  to  my  supporters, 
and  especially,  let  me  add,  to  my  Oxford  supporters,  on 
account  of  the  circumstance  that  there  has  hitherto  been  so 
little  of  personal  acquaintance  between  them  and  the  man  to 
whom  they  have  given  their  generous  confidence,  and  their 
energetic  and  triumphant  exertions.  I  am,  believe  me,  truly 
thankful :  the  more  thankful,  I  hope,  from  all  that  I  know  of 
myself,  and  of  my  own  shortcomings,  and  of  the  tendency  of 
my  mind  to  make,  some  at  least,  of  those  shortcomings  pal- 
pable in  my  public  conduct ;  and  from  the  high,  the  very  high, 
conception  which  I  entertain  of  the  duties  which  should  be 
rendered  to  Oxford  by  her  representative.  I  am  divided 
between  the  keenest  pleasure  upon  finding  myself  so  definitely 
and  closely  related  to  the  University  which  I  love  with  my 
whole  heart,  and  the  misgivings  which,  after  having  reflected 
a  little  on  what  I  ought  to  be  or  to  do,  I  turn  to  think  of  what 
I  am.  Of  all  the  years  of  all  the  centuries  which  have 
made  up  her  honoured  existence,  perhaps  these  now  before  us 
are  the  most  critical — certainly  they  are  among  the  most 
critical.  I  would  that  her  interests  were  in  stronger  and  in 
purer  hands ;  God  grant  in  His  mercy  that  I  may  attain,  after 
my  election,  to  the  gifts  which  I  ought  to  have  had  before  it. 
I  rely  most  upon  your  assurance,  which  I  am  confident  is  more 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


187 


than  verbal,  that  my  weakness  will  not  be  forgotten  in  the 
prayers  of  those  who  bear  affection  to  Oxford. 

My  hope  is  to  be  always  there  mentally,  but  much  also 
bodily,  and  I  have  written  to  Mr.  Greswell  to  ask  how  long  a 
visit  he  thinks  I  may  decently  pay  at  the  commencement  of 
the  October  Term.  So  I  will  trouble  you  no  longer. — Believe 
me,  always  very  sincerely  yours,  W.  E.  Gladstone. 

Eev.  J.  B.  Mozley. 

In  the  course  of  the  next  term  the  proposed  visit  was  paid, 
and  J.  B.  M.  writes  of  the  occasion  to  his  sister  : — 

Oxford,  1847. 

Gladstone  has  been  here  this  week.  I  met  him  on  Monday 
at  Gres  well's.  He  did  his  part  very  well,  but  had  to  make  a 
speech,  which  was  somewhat  gloomy  in  its  forebodings.  He 
talked  of  changes,  and  movements  in  a  way  not  gratifying  to 
established  institutions  ;  and  the  difficulties  in  which  men  in 
Parliament  would  be  placed. 

The  fun  of  the  evening  was  a  speech  of  Greswell's,  who 
congratulated  us  on  our  luck  in  winning  the  election  ;  it  was  a 
series  of  the  most  lucky  chances  which  had  got  it.  He  en- 
larged upon  luck  and  chance  to  such  a  degree,  as  wholly  to 
supersede  the  merits  of  the  candidate  himself  as  any  part  of 
the  cause.  And  he  went  on  so  perfectly  unconscious  of  this 
aspect  of  his  speech,  that,  one  by  one,  at  last  all  the  table  were 
loudly  tittering,  which  rose  at  last  into  unmistakable  laughter 
— Gladstone,  who  had  kept  his  countenance  with  the  utmost 
rigidity  for  a  long  time,  at  last  being  forced  to  give  way. 

In  November  of  this  year  Oxford  was  again  thrown  into 
commotion  by  Dr.  Hampden's  appointment  to  the  See  of 
Hereford.  This  is  not  a  time  or  place  in  which  to  discuss  the 
merits  of  the  question,  but  a  few  letters  may  be  given  which 
throw  light  on  the  feeling  and  thought  of  the  period. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  December  3,  1847. 
My  dear  Anne, —  .  .  .  Thirteen  bishops  of  the  province  of 


Letters  of  the 


Canterbury  have  signed  a  private  memorial  to  Lord  J.  Russell 
against  Hampden's  appointment.  This  is  a  strong  step.  The 
opposition  seems  increasing  too  in  the  country. 

I  dined  at  the  Bishop  of  Oxford's,  at  Cuddesden,  on 
Monday.  ...  I  must  say  I  was  more  pleased  with  the  Bishop 
than  I  expected,  for  I  rather  dreaded  coming  into  contact  with 
him.  There  was  less  artificialness  about  him  than  I  expected. 
A  love  of  the  humorous  is  a  great  leveller,  and  he  can  no  more 
resist  telling  a  good  story,  even  though  it  a  little  compromises 
his  dignity,  than  a  dog  can  pass  a  tit-bone.  He  is  exceedingly 
strong  about  this  Hampden  business,  and  thought  it  a  subject 
on  which  the  whole  Church  ought  to  make  demonstrations.  I 
am  rather  amused  at  the  touchiness  of  the  Bishops,  now  that 
there  is  a  chance  of  their  having  Hampden  on  the  same  bench 
with  them.  They  have  very  little  respected  our  touchiness  in 
Oxford  on  the  subject,  and  have  made  men  attend  his  lectures ; 
— a  circumstance  with  which  Lord  John  will  twit  them,  I 
doubt  not.  However,  I  am  glad  to  see  their  orthodoxy — better 
late  than  never.- — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Among  letters  and  papers  treating  of  the  great  Hampden 
question  is  one  from  Mr.  Golightly  to  Dr.  Ogle,  with  a  message 
to  J.  B.  M.,  "  who  cuts  me  now:" — of  course  on  account  of  his 
recent  denunciation  of  his  brother  in  The  Standard.  It  has 
something  the  air  of  an  olive  branch,  and  probably  was  received 
accordingly : — 

"  As  Dr.  Hampden's  friends  are  making  a  vigorous  attempt 
to  persuade  the  public  that  the  opposition  to  his  nomination 
proceeds  from  only  one  party  in  the  Church,  could  you  take  an 
opportunity  of  informing  him  [J.  B.  M.]  that  Vaughan  Thomas, 
Lancaster,  Trower,  and  myself,  all  members  of  Mr.  Round's 
committee,  have  protested  in  some  way  or  other.  For  myself, 
if  my  name  can  be  of  any  use,  I  fully  authorise  the  mention 
of  it  in  The  Times,  Guardian,  English  Churchman,  or  any  other 
periodical  or  paper." 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


189 


A  letter  to  J.  B.  M.  from  Mr.  Charles  Marriott — the  most 
single-minded  of  men — throws  a  kindly  light  on  the  Bishop  of 
Oxford's  change  of  tone  : — 

Brad  field,  St.  Stephen's,  1847. 

My  dear  Mozley, — I  have  thought  more  about  your  letter 
on  the  connection  of  the  Bampton  Lectures  and  Obs.  on  Eel. 
Dissent,  and  am  convinced  that,  though  valid  pleading,  it  is 
not  really  conclusive  to  the  full. 

The  Bampton  Lectures  show  so  much  confusion  of  thought, 
that  their  author  is  certainly  capable  of  thinking  for  a  time 
that  a  given  view  involves  what  it  really  does  not.  And  so  he 
might,  in  writing  the  Observations,  think  for  the  time  that  the 
principles  of  his  B.  L.  must  involve  so  much,  and  cease  to 
think  so  afterwards.  What  he  says  of  their  being  the  same  is 
his  own  opinion  at  a  given  time,  but  we  know  how  much 
weight  to  attach  to  it. 

I  think,  therefore,  that  if  the  Bishop  clenches  that  with- 
drawal publicly,  and  expresses  publicly  his  disapproval  of 
the  language  of  the  B.  L,  while  he  allows  the  author  to  put  an 
orthodox  interpretation  on  it  even  at  a  little  strain,  and  passes 
him  under  that  interpretation,  it  is  our  business  to  acquiesce 
in  his  decision. 

If  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  presses  for  a  more  formal  tribunal,  I 
blame  no  one  who  co-operates  with  him,  but  I  would  allow 
the  Bishop  of  Oxford's  decision,  though  not  exactly  to  my 
mind,  to  supersede  my  own  opinion.  I  wish  you  to  notice  that 
in  the  passage  on  the  Unity  of  God,  Hampden  calls  this  Unity 
a  fact,  thus  admitting  such  a  sense  of  the  term.  Don't  try  to 
set  this  aside,  for  you  ought  not.  I  have  had  a  painful  sense 
all  these  years,  whenever  I  thought  of  Hampden,  of  his  having 
been  really  misapprehended  and  misrepresented,  though  I  still 
think,  as  I  did  from  the  first,  that  there  was  just  ground  for 
stronger  acts  than  have  been  taken  against  him.  I  must  say 
that  my  last  conversation  with  the  Bishop  and  subsequent 
consideration,  have  modified  my  opinion  of  Hampden's  honesty. 
I  used  to  doubt  it  much  more  than  I  do  now.  Pray  excuse 
this  rigmarole,  and  try  to  put  as  much  eVtet/ceia  into  the 


190 


Letters  of  t lie 


business  as  your  dogmatic  couscience  will  let  you.  Such  a 
tiresome  fellow  is  apt  to  put  one's  moral  conscience  to  sleep. — 
Ever  yours  affectionately,  C.  Marriott. 

A  further  reading  of  the  lectures  does  not  bring  J.  B.  M. 
round  to  these  opinions,  but  he  recognises  that  much  rests  in 
tone  : — 

It  is  as  clear  as  day  what  the  theological  system  in  them  is, 
at  the  same  time  there  would  be  great  difficulty  in  proving  it 
in  a  Court,  especially  such  a  prejudiced  Court  as  Sir  Herbert 
.Tenner  would  make.  You  have  a  few  passages  where  the 
system  comes  out  strongly  and  decidedly,  but  these  are  very 
few,  the  rest  lies  in  tone.  For  example  he  [Hampden]  uses  the 
words  "  heterodox  "  and  "  orthodox  "  throughout  the  lectures 
obviously  with  the  most  perfect  impartiality  between  the  two, 
thinking  both  equally  wrong  as  being  dogmatisers.  I  suppose 
no  Court  would  take  cognisance  of  tone.  .  .  .  Then  the  ques- 
tion would  come  to  this,  whether  the  few  passages  where  the 
system  does  come  out  would  be  allowed  to  have  their  real 
weight  assigned  them  as  interpreting  the  rest. 

The  following  letter  relates  to  the  confirmation  at  Bow 
Church,  previous  to  the  consecration  of  the  Bishop-elect : — 

To  ins  Sister. 

January  22,  1848. 
I  went  up  to  London  for  a  day  the  beginning  of  this  week. 
Cornish  (of  Littlemore),  who  was  there,  described  the  scene  at 
Bow  Church  as  a  more  exciting  one  than  the  papers  gave  any 
idea  of.  He  was  certain  that  if  it  had  not  been  in  church  there 
would  have  been  a  regular  tumult.  The  Second  "  Oyez,  oyez, 
oyez,"  of  the  crier,  inviting  opponents  to  come  forward  and  state 
objections,  ending  with,  "  and  ye  shall  be  heard,"  produced  an 
extraordinary  sensation  of  indignation.  It  added  to  the  effect 
that  the  proclamation  was  delivered  in  the  properly  uncon- 
scious, sonorous,  nasal  tone  in  which  criers  deliver  themselves ; 
so  that  nothing  of  the  ridiculous  was  lost.  It  was  said  Sir 
Fitzroy  Kelly  entered  very  keenly  into  the  case,  and  was  even 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


191 


sanguine  as  to  the  result.  Lushington  lost  his  temper  at  Bow, 
all  seem  to  say,  and  behaved  quite  disreputably  as  a  judge. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

A  note  from  Mr.  Keble  to  J.  B.  M.,  dated  February  18, 
touches  gently  on  the  Bishop  of  Oxford's  part  in  the  whole 
business.  A  friend,  under  the  initial  T.,  had  been  endeavouring 
to  engage  his  [Mr.  Keble's]  good  offices  for  a  friendly  notice  in 
The  Guardian. 

February  18,  1848. 

My  dear  Mozley, — .  .  .  I  explained  to  him  that  I  considered 
the  Bishop  to  have  been  carried  away  into  weak  and  incon- 
sistent behaviour  through  no  bad  motive,  but  from  an  earnest 
desire  of  peace  joined  to  a  fancy  that  he  was  the  person  to 
make  it,  as  by  a  kind  of  special  mission,  which  all  must  allow. 
I  told  him  in  substance  that  I  thought  Mr.  K.  had  done  more 
harm  than  good,  and  that  the  best  line  for  the  Bishop  and  his 
friends  was  to  be  quiet  and  leave  it  to  his  future  conduct  to 
show  him  the  true  and  straightforward  person  which  I  have 
no  doubt  he  wishes  to  be,  and  substantially  is.  .  .  . 

Accept  my  best  thanks  for  "  Martin  Luther,"  who  I  never 
expected  could  have  been  made  so  amusing  and  interesting  as 
I  find  him — being  now  in  my  second  reading. — Ever  yours 
affectionately,  J.  Keble. 

Writing  soon  after  this  correspondence,  J.  B.  M.  to  his  sister 
says  : — "  I  have  to  dine — not  an  agreeable  prospect — with  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford  on  Wednesday,  but  he  sent  to  ask  me  to  meet 
his  brother  the  Archdeacon,  and  I  did  not  like  to  decline 
again."  The  Bishop's  social  charm  was  an  influence  he  did 
well  to  rely  on.  He  always  seems  to  have  been  most  himself 
when  most  pleasing. 

To  his  Sister. 

February  28,  1848. 
...  At  Cuddesden  there  was  not  much  of  a  party,  and 
what  there  was  was  of  the  free  and  easy  sort.  .  .  .  .Robert 


192 


Letters  of  the 


AVilberforce  was  there,  and  we — that  is  C.  Marriott,  myself,  and 
he — went  over  in  the  same  fly.  The  Bishop  was  as  courteous 
and  agreeable  as  ever.  The  subject  of  Hampden  and  the  con- 
firmation of  bishops,  etc.,  was  fearlessly  entered  upon  in  the 
general,  but  I  observed  that  the  awkward  point  was  always 
kept  a  respectable  distance  from.  .  .  .  The  subject  nicely  moved 
round  it,  and  never  touched.  Hampden's  letters  have  evidently 
nettled  him.  .  .  .  All,  under-graduates  included,  made  them- 
selves perfectly  at  home,  and  certainly  the  Bishop  has  the  art 
of  making  persons  feel  at  home.  He  does  not  put  on  dignity. 
The  Wilberforce  nature  prevails  in  him  to  a  certain  extent, 
notwithstanding  his  advancement. 

What  a  tremendous  affair  seems  coming  on  now !  I  never 
was  so  utterly  astonished  as  at  the  first  news  of  Louis  Philippe's 
abdication.    But  this  event,  I  suppose,  will  soon  be  left  behind. 

J.  B.  M. 

Amongst  papers,  shortly  after  this  date,  is  a  little  note  signed 
with  well-known  initials : — "  A  pretty  state  we  are  in  alto- 
gether, with  a  Eadical  Pope  teaching  all  Europe  rebellion ! 
Every  post  brings  a  fresh  argument  for  the  duty  of  securing 
the  middle  classes  if  possible. — E.  I.  W." 

J.  B.  M.  TO  his  Sistee. 

February,  1848. 
There  is  a  small  excitement  going  on  within  a  limited  circle 
here  in  consequence  of  a  Musical  Professorship  being  vacant. 
There  are  some  dozen  candidates — among  the  rest,  the  two  fierce 
rivals,  Dr.  "Wesley  and  Dr.  Gauntlet.  Dr.  Gauntlet  made  his 
appearance  in  my  rooms  on  Saturday  evening,  and  commenced 
instantly  talking  in  a  continuous  flow  about  music  and  his 
own  views.  Before  five  minutes  were  over  he  was  chanting  a 
Psalm,  in  the  style  of  what  he  conjectured  to  be  the  Temple 
service  instituted  by  David.  He  has  written  a  book,  of  which 
he  produced  the  proof-sheets  of  Psalms  with  notation  for 
chanting  in  this  style.  I  was  not  fascinated  by  it.  Dr.  G.  has 
one  advantage — he  is  not  a  loud  talker,  though  a  copious  one. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


i93 


He  is  obviously  too  a  clever  man,  and  when  he  breakfasted 
with  me  the  next  morning  talked  sometimes  about  other  sub- 
jects, and  was  amusing. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

J.  B.  M.  may  be  said  to  have  had  a  passion  for  music,  if  that 
word  is  compatible  with  serenity  of  tone  and  manner  in  listen- 
ing to  it  and  talking  of  it.  It  stimulated  thought.  He  had 
a  correct  ear  and  a  fine  intelligent  perception  of  style  and 
quality,  a  contempt  for  the  commonplace  and  trash ;  he  had 
strong  tastes  and  dislikes,  finding  moral  distinctions  between 
different  composers.  He  never  listened  indolently  or  uncon- 
sciously. It  might  seem  strange  that  his  share  in  the  perform- 
ance was  never  other  than  as  a  listener.  But  probably  he  had 
no  singing  voice  (I  doubt  if  any  person  ever  heard  him  test  his 
powers),  and  one  may  say  that  he  never  put  his  hand  to  any 
other  skilled  labour  than  that  of  holding  and  guiding  a  pen. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  31,  1848. 
.  .  .  There  have  been  some  amusing  struggles  this  term  in 
the  Union — i.e.  Debating  Society — on  the  subject  of  Stanley's 
Sermons.  You  know  what  they  are — a  new  volume — which  have 
been  preacbed  before  the  University,  and  represent  the  German 
School  in  England.  Mr.  Burgon,  a  Fellow  of  Oriel  and  a 
tremendous  Churchman,  who  is  librarian  to  the  Union,  and  to 
whom  it  belongs  to  recommend  books  for  purchase  to  the  Union, 
refused  to  recommend  this  book ;  whereupon  a  certain  Congreve, 
a  Fellow  of  Wadham,  and  great  Arnoldite,  also  a  master  at 
Bugby,  came  from  Bugby  on  purpose  to  propose  a  vote  of 
censure  on  Burgon,  on  the  grounds  that  he  had  consulted  his 
own  private  theological  tastes  in  the  matter,  and  not  acted  as 
the  officer  of  the  Society.  The  combat  was  conducted  with 
great  spirit ;  and  Burgon,  who  is  a  great  punster,  fired  off  an 
enormous  number  of  puns  on  Congreve's  name — allusion  to 
rockets,  a  man  of  fiery  temperament,  etc. — and  whether  his 
puns  or  his  arguments  carried  the  day,  he  won  it  by  some 
hundred  to  some  thirty  votes. 

N 


194 


Letters  of  the 


Stanley  is  a  very  amiable  pleasing  man  in  himself,  and 
one  would  not  like  him  to  be  the  subject  of  any  rude  triumph  ; 
— but  the  whole  affair  seems  to  have  been  without  any  acerbity. 
I  have  written  a  notice  upon  his  Sermons  in  this  C.  B. — a  thing 
I  did  not  want  to  do,  inasmuch  as  I  meet  him  occasionally  and 
am  always  good  friends  with  him.  But  it  would  not  have 
done  to  have  omitted  them  altogether,  so  I  made  a  notice  of  them 
— a  tolerably  long  one,  I  allow.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  April  14,  1848. 

Dear  Anne, — Palmer  has  a  Chaldean  visiting  him  here, 
quite  a  young  man,  and  I  should  think  quite  a  beau  in  his  own 
country.  He  wears  ordinarily  our  common  dress,  but  will  put 
on  his  Asiatic  one  if  you  want  him.  He  dined  with  us  in  Hall 
yesterday  in  it,  and  really  looked  exceedingly  handsome.  He 
is  a  brother  of  a  Mr.  Bassam,  who  is,  though  a  Chaldee,  our 
consul  at  Mossul.  He  gives  a  shocking  description  of  the 
Turkish  governors  in  the  provinces,  and  describes  them  as 
sending  for  the  rich  men  immediately  on  arriving  at  their  posts, 
and  fleecing  them  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  expedient  is, 
when  they  have  exhausted  all  the  man's  wealth,  and  all  he 
can  beg  from  his  friends,  to  put  him  to  death,  and  suspend  the 
body  over  the  church  door,  till  the  congregation  subscribe  the 
rest  of  the  sum  pretended  to  be  due  from  the  unfortunate 
deceased.  His  uncle  had  his  hand  cut  off,  and  died  two  days 
after  from  neglect  and  bleeding.  The  wonder  to  me  is  that 
people  who  can  live  elsewhere  do  not  emigrate. 

Lord  Forbes  is  in  Oxford.  He  is  a  most  zealous  Scotch 
Episcopalian,  and  is  now  engaged  in  a  scheme  for  building  a 
Cathedral  at  Perth,  in  which  he  has  received  all  sorts  of  rebuffs, 
but  he  goes  on,  and  is  gradually  getting  money.  Mrs.  Sheppard, 
the  President's  sister,  has  given  him  £1000,  and  the  President 
£100,  and  Mrs.  Coutts  he  has  hopes  from. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

At  a  dinner  party  in  town — 

"  The  talk  fell  upon  Lord  G.  Bentinck.  Everybody  agreed 
he  had  killed  himself  by  not  taking  holiday.    He  never  had  a 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


195 


holiday,  but  went  straight  from  the  exciting  work  of  the  House 
to  Newmarket.  W.  said  he  kept  a  regular  office  in  London 
for  the  transaction  of  his  betting  business  with  clerks.  Mr.  C. 
had  met  him  at  West  Indian  deliberations,  and  had  been 
immensely  struck  with  his  calculating  powers  and  his  prodi- 
gious memory,  not  only  for  figures,  but  documents.  He  could 
remember  a  whole  heap  after  he  had  been  once  over  them. 
Those  calculating  minds,  I  suppose,  always  must  be  calculating ; 
it  gets  to  be  a  kind  of  disease." 

Mr.  Keble,  writing  May  11,  1848,  on  a  proposed  Tract 
movement  ("Tracts  for  the  Million"),  ends  a  note  to  J.  B.  M. : 
"  I  see,  or  rather  hear,  that  you  have  got  the  petition  I  sent  you 
in  The  Guardian,  and  I  am  glad  of  it ;  also  I  see  that  some  one 
of  your  Reviewers  there  has  been  abusing  King  Charles  the 
First.  He  had  need  to  be  a  very  good  man,  that  same  Reviewer. 
— Yours  in  haste  and  affection,  J.  K." 

The  close  of  the  year  brought  another  excitement  to  Oxford 
and  to  society  at  large.  The  feeling  raised  by  Jenny  Lind  is 
distinct  from  anything  in  one's  experience.  Recalling  her 
voice  we  feel  it  a  thing  to  hear  once  in  a  life  ;  but  it  did  not 
need  musical  taste  or  feeling  to  enter  into  her  charm.  She  did 
without  beauty,  and  needed  no  feeling  for  music  in  her  wor- 
shippers— in  fact,  raising  enthusiasm  in  persons  who  did  not 
know  one  tune  from  another, — by  whom  she  was  only  to  be 
described  by  superlatives  and  the  most  violent  antitheses.  She 
visited  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  and  a  description  from  the  pen 
of  A.  P.  Stanley  stands  before  me  :  "  Jenny  Lind  has  been  here 
for  three  days,  and  leaves  to-day.  Of  her  musical  powers  I 
will  say  nothing  except  that  they  produced  no  impression  upon 
me  [he  had  no  ear  for  music] ;  but  her  whole  character  and 
appearance  is  one  of  the  most  striking  I  ever  saw — the  manners 
of  a  princess  with  the  simplicity  of  a  child  and  the  goodness  of 
an  angel.  .  .  .  The  features  are  plain  and  homely,  far  beyond 
what  you  would  infer  from  her  portraits ;  but  when  animated 


196 


Letters  of  the 


she  is  perfectly  lovely,  and  her  smile  is,  with  the  exception  of 
Dr.  Pusey's,  the  most  heavenly  I  ever  beheld."  Dr.  Pusey  also 
is  said  to  have  been  perfectly  insensible  to  music,  but  there 
was  felt  a  fitness  between  the  songstress  and  the  divine  that 
produced  quite  a  solicitude  to  bring  the  two  together.  Dr. 
Pusey  was  sounded  on  the  point.  He  declined  all  visiting,  but 
was  willing  to  show  her  the  Chapter-house.  This  task,  how- 
ever, fell  to  others.  The  way  to  introduce  the  name  to  her 
would  have  been  to  tell  her  Dr.  Pusey  was  Hebrew  Professor, 
and  a  man  of  saintly  piety.  J.  B.  M.'s  report  is  in  a  calmer 
vein,  but  every  one  who  saw  and  heard  her  felt  the  need  to 
give  his  impressions.  Every  correspondence  of  the  day  had 
its  attempt  to  define  what  is  perhaps  indefinable. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  December  2,  1848. 
My  dear  Anne, — I  have  seen  Jenny  Lind  in  her  public 
capacity,  not  in  private.  The  Donkins  were  not  successful. 
Her  first  appearance  is  certainly  not  taking.  She  is  plain,  and 
looked  older  than  I  expected.  .  .  .  Now  for  the  favourable 
side  :  I  must  say  she  had  wonderful  powers  of  making  this  face 
of  hers  look  very  pleasing,  and  even  lofty  and  noble  occasion- 
ally. She  had  two  great  powers  in  her  face  ;  one  of  stiffening 
it,  and  the  other  of  resolving  it,  so  to  speak ;  I  mean  of  im- 
parting all  sorts  of  active  expressions,  chiefly  of  the  arch  and 
comical  sort,  to  it.  It  was  sometimes  so  perfectly  motionless 
and  stiff  as  to  be  almost  corpse-like,  but  not  without  a  certain 
grandeur,  an  expression  of  determined  obstinacy,  stubbornness, 
and  hauteur.  Then  when  she  changed  to  active  expression,  she 
had  all  sorts  of  odd  uses  of  her  eyes,  looking  from  underneath 
and  from  the  corners  of  her  eyes,  and  so  on,  and  was  certainly 
excessively  arch  ;  and  one  expression  chased  another,  just  like 
waves  over  the  sea.  I  say  so  much  about  her  powers  of  ex- 
pression in  face,  because  it  was  quite  obvious  to  me,  before  I 
had  been  in  the  room  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  that  her  face  was 
half  her  singing.    I  felt  sensibly  that  I  lost  full  half  whenever 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


197 


I  withdrew  my  glass.  Her  comic  expression  came  out  in  the 
Rossini  and  the  Swedish  songs  at  the  last.  However,  to  go  to 
her  vocal  powers,  I  cannot  say  that  her  voice  was  so  full  a  one 
as  I  expected,  or  so  powerful ;  her  wonderful  power  over  it 
seemed  the  great  point.  She  could  positively  do  anything  with 
it.  It  was  absolutely  obedient ;  I  never  heard  anything  at  all 
equal  to  its  flexibility ;  she  tossed  it  about  as  conjurors  do 
their  balls,  and  seemed  to  have  twenty  voices  at  once.  She 
shook  with  such  perfection  that  the  note  seemed  self-undu- 
lating. .  .  .  Then  she  imitated  an  echo,  first  a  slow,  then  a 
quicker  one,  till  the  echo  of  the  last  note  was,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  real  echo,  mixed  with  the  succeeding  note.  Then  she 
had  astonishing  powers  of  sustaining  long  slow  notes,  which  she 
displayed  in  the  song  from  Weber.  [If  this  was  the  song  I 
heard,  it  realised  to  me  Milton's  "  divine  enchanting  ravish- 
ment."] 

I  have  been  writing  a  description  of  vocal  machinery  more 
than  of  music  ;  but  the  fact  is,  a  concert  is  almost  necessarily 
a  display  of  machinery.  ...  I  do  not  consider  that  I  have 
heard  Jenny  Lind  to  advantage,  though  she  showed  off  her 
powers  astonishingly.  Of  course  there  was  rapturous  applause, 
and  waving  of  hats  and  caps. 

One  amusing  feature  of  the  scene  was,  that  being  in  an 
official  University  room — that  is,  the  Theatre — the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  and  Proctors,  who  were  all  there,  sat  in  their  chairs  of  state, 
and  with  their  caps  on.  So  that  Jenny  Lind  was  performing 
before  the  University  ;  just  as  we  say,  "  a  sermon  preached 
before  the  University." — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  the  year  1849,  J.  B.  M.  was  bursar  of  his  College,  and  had 
accounts  to  keep — an  occupation  not  much  in  his  line.  He 
reports  himself  as  seeking  relaxation  under  his  duties  in  lighter 
fiction,  for  which  graver  literary  pursuits  did  not  leave  him 
much  time.  After  dashing  off  his  thoughts  on  Monte  Christ 0 
and  Wuthering  H<:i<jMs — finding  in  the  latter  an  element  of 
truth  and  nature,  however  much  it  is  spoilt — he  touches  011 
Vanity  Fair. 


198 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sistek. 

January  27,  1849. 
Vanity  Fair  I  was  agreeably  disappointed  in ;  I  found  it 
less  in  the  caricature  line  than  I  expected.  It  certainly  is 
full  of  pieces  of  truth  and  nature — I  think  superior  to  Dickens 
in  that,  though  without  his  exuberant  powers  of  description. 
What  he  fails  in  is  power  of  sustaining  a  scene  ;  where  feeling 
comes  in  he  cuts  it  very  short,  and  this  has  a  disappointing 
effect  on  the  reader,  and  it  shows  evidently  want  of  power  in 
the  writer.  It  is  clear  he  would  make  the  scene  longer  if  he 
could. 

To  leave  criticism.  Gladstone  is  here  for  a  few  days,  seeing 
his  constituents.  He  dined  with  me  yesterday  in  our  common 
room,  and  of  course,  as  in  duty  bound,  made  himself  very 
agreeable,  and  talked  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  literary  and 
political.  The  revolutionary  movement  has  at  last  reached  us, 
and  a  Tutorial  Society  is  now  in  formation,  embracing  all  those 
who  bear  or  have  borne  College  offices,  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
cussing academical  measures,  and  reporting  thereupon  to  the 
Hebdomadal  Board.  Something  of  the  kind  has  been  wanted  a 
long  time,  for  the  Hebdomadal  Board  never  consult  anybody 
previous  to  issuing  a  measure  ;  then,  when  the  voting  comes, 
there  is  no  distinction  allowed,  but  the  whole  must  be  either 
accepted  or  rejected.  This  is  a  great  stopper  to  all  improve- 
ments. So  some  medium  of  conference  beforehand  with  the 
Heads  is  a  desideratum.  This  is  only  a  form,  in  fact,  of  the 
original  powers  of  Convocation,  which  have  disappeared  for 
years.  Of  course  the  Heads  will  not  like  it ;  indeed  for  us  it  is  a 
somewhat  revolutionary  proceeding.  But  there  is  such  solidity 
in  the  resident  body  of  Masters  that  one  need  not  be  much 
afraid  of  excess. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sistek. 

Oxford,  March  14,  1849. 
I  have  dipped  a  good  deal  into  the  book  you  sent  me 
[Poetry  Past  and  Present].    The  translations  from  the  classics 
at  the  end  are  as  good  as  elegant  translators  can  make. 
Anstice  has  a  considerable  name.    It  so  happened  I  heard 


Rev.  J.  B.  Modey,  D.D. 


199 


one  it  gives  of  his  recited  at  a  party  as  a  specimen  of 
good  translation,  a  few  days  before  I  had  this  book.  I 
must  confess,  however,  that  to  me  all  translations,  without 
exception,  appear  failures.  Cowley's,  which  is  not  a  failure, 
is  hardly  a  translation  ;  it  merely  takes  the  idea  from  Pindar  : 
— translations,  I  mean,  from  the  ancients.  Modern,  I  sup- 
pose, is  feasible.  Miss  Donkin's,  from  the  German,  always 
strike  me  as  being  remarkable  specimens  of  successful  fusion 
— things  that  one  would  read  without  knowing  that  they  were 
translations. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  May  2,  1849. 
We  went  our  Magdalen  progress  last  week — that  is  to  say, 
two  of  us,  myself  and  the  college  steward  together,  hiring  a 
carriage  at  Oxford,  which  we  put  on  the  rail  to  Eeading,  and 
then  posted.  My  companion  is  an  excellent  man  of  business, 
and  formidable  to  farmers.  His  information  and  conversation 
were  principally  in  that  department,  in  which  I  was  less  at 
home  than  he ;  so  that  he,  though  generally  taciturn,  was  the 
principal  talker  of  the  two.  He  is  a  brother  of  Mrs.  Routb, 
one  of  the  Berkshire  Blagraves.  The  family  is  a  good  deal 
reduced ;  but  Colonel  Blagrave,  his  brother,  is  still  a  country 
squire  of  property.  We  drove  through  old  family  estates 
in  the  course  of  our  travels,  now  passed  away  from  them,  but 
on  which  his  father  resided  part  of  the  year,  in  his  boyish 
days ;  going  from  one  hall  where  he  lived  the  winter,  to  another 
where  he  lived  the  summer,  with  an  immense  train  of  servants 
and  carriages,  at  a  huge  expense,  there  being  no  kind  of  difference 
between  the  two  places,  except  that  one  was  eighteen  miles 
from  the  other.  His  kitchen  bills  may  be  estimated  from  the 
fact  that  his  bill  for  malt  for  the  year  was  £400.  All  the  ser- 
vants and  all  their  friends  ate  and  drank  ad  libitum  ;  and  post- 
boys were  never  known  to  be  sober  on  returning  from  his  house. 
Our  journey  was  as  otiose  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine,  starting 
long  after  breakfast  in  the  morning,  and  stopping  long  before 
dinner  in  the  evening :  precisely  the  same  days  and  hours  for 
meeting  tenantry  being  kept  that  have  been  since  the  College 


200 


Letters  of  the 


was  founded,  when  travelling  was  conducted  over  impassable 
roads,  and  on  horseback,  with  College  retainers,  with  large  horse 
pistols  and  arquebusses  behind.1   It  was,  probably,  a  hard  week's 

1  The  old  order  in  Oxford  is  so  utterly  changed  that  a  glimpse  into  one 
scene  of  its  domestic  life  may  interest  the  reader.  Dr.  Routh,  then  in  his 
95th  year,  and  his  surroundings,  even  at  the  date  of  the  followiug  letter, 
were  regarded  as  relics  of  a  former  state  of  things  : — 

"  Oxford,  June  11,  1849. 

' '  My  dear  Maria, — Yesterday  we  dined  at  the  President's — such  a  curious 
interesting  scene  ;  Mr.  B.  congratulated  Fanny  on  it,  as  what  so  few 
people  do  see.  The  President  is  more  old  and  wonderful-looking  than  any 
one  could  imagine  beforehand.  He  must  always  have  been  below  middle 
height  ;  but  age  has  bent  and  shrunk  him  to  something  startlingly  short 
when  he  walks.  In  his  chair  one  does  not  perceive  it  so  much.  The 
wig,  of  course,  adds  to  the  effect — such  a  preposterous  violation  of  nature. 
It  seems  quite  to  account  for  his  not  hearing  what  people  say.  His 
manner  was  most  kind  and  courteous  to  mamma ;  and  he  took  the 
opportunity  of  taking  her  into  dinner  to  say  some  complimentary  things  of 
James,  of  whom  I  think  he  is  very  fond.  It  is  really  very  nice  to  see 
his  Fellows  round  him  ;  they  seem  so  fond  of  him.  An  indulgent  respectful 
reverence,  with  a  good  deal  of  fun  all  the  while,  is  the  general  manner  ;  and 
he  is  very  cheerful,  and  often  laughs  with  the  greatest  heartiness.  Mrs. 
Routh,  in  her  way,  is  as  unusual  a  person  to  meet ;  and  harmonises  with 
the  scene  ; — extremely  good-natured,  probably  had  always  something  of  the 
mauuer  of  a  child,  so  wonderfully  single  and  unassuming.  James  says, 
what  an  absolute  contrast  their  drawing-room  presents  to  any  other  Head  of 
a  House  in  Oxford,  in  the  terms  of  easy  familiarity  between  the  Fellows  and 
their  Head.  Mrs.  Routh  is  evidently  not  made  for  the  stately.  .  .  .  She  is 
so  amiable  and  so  thoughtful,  in  her  way,  for  the  comfort  and  amusement  of 
her  guests  that  one  has  quite  an  affectionate  feeling  towards  her.  She  took 
us  into  many  of  the  rooms,  and  into  the  College  library.  One  singular  addi- 
tion to  the  party  was  Mr.  Ormuzd  Rassam,  in  full  Chaldean  costume,  at  Mrs. 
Routh's  particular  desire.  This  Rassam  is  brother  of  the  Consul  at  Mossul, 
and  himself  was  with  Mr.  Layard,  and  his  chief  help  and  ally  in  all  his  dis- 
coveries. You  will  remember  the  picture  of  this  one  in  the  procession  of 
the  Bull.  James  is  always  remarking  his  exact  resemblance  to  the  figures  in 
the  sculptures  ;  and  it  is  very  true  he  claims  direct  descent  from  the  ancient 
Assyrians,  and  says  his  nation  has  never  been  allowed  to  marry  strangers, 
except  just  now,  when  his  brother  has  married  an  English  woman.  Dr. 
Bloxam  has  spread  it  abroad  that  he  is  forty-fourth  cousin  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
and  Rassam  complains  that  he  has  been  asked  everywhere  if  it  is  really  true. 
.  .  .  Mrs.  Routh  laments  his  approaching  departure  :  '  We  shall  go  into 
mourning  when  he  is  gone  !  Oh,  he  is  such  a  good  man,  such  a  very  good 
man,  I  am  so  fond  of  him  !'  The  President  compliments  him  on  his  beauty  : 
'  But  as  for  such  cousins  as  Nebuchadnezzar,  they  are  nothing  to  boast  of.' 

"  The  look  of  things  there  was  all  so  characteristic.  The  house  full  of 
books ;  the  dining-room  filled  with  folios  and  quartos,  drawing-room,  stair- 
case, passages,  etc.,  with  smaller  books.  Mrs.  Routh  complains  she  shall 
soon  not  be  able  to  get  about,  from  the  accumulation  of  book-shelves,  for  he 
still  buys,  and  knows  where  every  book  in  his  library  is.  She  took  us  into 
his  dressing-room.     The  dressing  appointments  were  of  the  most  limited 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


20I 


peregrination  then.  Herbert 1  came  to  me  at  Winchester 
to  breakfast,  after  which  we  went  to  the  cathedral ;  and  then 
started  to  our  manor  farm  at  Otterbourne.  There  I  left  Blagrave, 
and  called  on  Mr.  Yonge  with  Herbert.  Mrs.  and  Miss  Yonge 
were  not  at  home ;  Mr.  Yonge  having  left  them  in  London, 
principally,  I  believe,  to  come  down  to  see  me,  in  order  to  talk 
about  Otterbourne  school,  for  which  he  is  anxious  to  procure  a 
large  subscription  from  the  College.  I  was  sorry  not  to  see 
Miss  Yonge.  We  then  went  to  Hursley,  and  lunched  at  the 
Kebles',  and  went  over  the  church,  which  I  had  not  seen  before. 
The  piers  are  criticised  as  being  rather  too  low,  and  I  thought 
the  altar  end  might  have  been  more  raised.  But  the  architect 
was  bent  on  keeping  the  village  church  style.  It  is  impossible, 
however,  to  judge  of  it  till  the  stained  glass  is  in.  Mrs.  Keble 
looked  very  well,  and  Keble  himself  in  good  spirits.  They 
have  been  successful  with  their  ladies'  petition  against  the  new 
Marriage  Bill,  and  have  got  nearly  10,000  signatures.  Sir  G. 
Grey,  who  is  to  present  it  to  the  Queen,  was  very  kind  and 
polite  in  his  notes  to  Keble,  and  made  allusions  to  former  days 
at  Oriel. 

kind  ;  but  the  walls  up  to  the  ceiling  are  covered  with  hooks,  and  there  is 
a  set  of  steps,  which  Mrs.  II.  said  he  could  ascend  quite  nimbly,  to  reach 
any  book  he  wants.  As  for  the  wigs,  Mr.  B.  is  in  hopes  of  possessing  one, 
and  he  coinmunicates  this  hope  to  Mrs.  Routh,  who  makes  many  charac- 
teristic exclamations.  In  the  midst  of  all  these  venerable  books,  pictures  of 
founders,  and  old-fashioned  homely  furniture— -the  Fellows  in  their  gowns, 
Rassam  in  his  flowing  bright  Eastern  dress,  and  the  President  in  his  '  knees,' 
huge  buckles,  to  his  shoes,  and  robes,  all  as  different  from  anything  one  is 
used  to  as  may  be — there  was  a  gentleman  commoner  not  much  at  home  in 
the  scene.  He  said  he  had  never  worn  his  gown  so  many  hours  together  in 
his  life.  The  bright  moment  of  the  evening  to  him  was  when  Dr.  Bloxam 
got  a  cup  of  tea  (which  he  had  stipxilated  with  Mrs.  Routh  should  be  a  i/ood 
cup,  not  husband's  tea)  in  his  cocoa-cup.  The  management  of  these  bever- 
ages was  almost  too  much  for  Mrs.  Routh,  though  she  had  Mr.  B.  and 
Fanny  to  help  her. 

"James  was  the  one  to  talk  to  the  President,  and  to  draw  him  out. 
They  talked  of  Hume,  Adam  Smith,  Home,  Parr,  Hurd,  Jortin,  Dr. 
Johnson  (who,  by  the  way,  Dr.  Routh  remembered  on  his  last  visit  to  Oxford, 
describing  him  to  us,  as  though  seeing  him,  in  a  'brown  tradesman's  wig'), 
and  discussing  style,  etc.  ...  I  could  not  hear  much  distinctly  ;  but  knew 
what  it  was  all  about.  ...  I  did  not  say  that  Mrs.  Routh  calls  the  President 
1  my  own.'  '  Take  care,  my  own,'  I  heard  her  cry  out ;  she  is  very  attentive 
to  him,  and  protested  much  against  Dr.  Bloxam's  satire  on  Husband's  tea. " 

1  His  nephew,  then  at  school  at  Twyford,  before  his  election  as  King's 
Scholar  to  Eton. 


202 


Letters  of  the 


The  country  about  Selbovne,  where  we  were  one  day,  is 
very  beautiful.  I  made  acquaintance  with  a  man  who  remem- 
bered Gilbert  White  quite  well,  and  had  taken  tea  with  him 
often. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  March  15,  1850. 

The  Gorham  decision  is  of  course  making  a  sensation ;  or 
rather  it  is  not  so  much  a  sensation,  as  a  graver  feeling  that  a 
long  and  anxious  struggle  is  commencing,  of  which  people  do  not 
see  the  issue.  I  do  not  think  that  the  body  of  High  Church- 
men are  at  all  wanting  to  act  in  a  hurry,  but  will  be  patient, 
and  are  prepared  for  years  of  contest  and  suspense.  So  I  see 
nothing  immediate  coming  to  alarm  people.  There  are  a  few 
who  want  to  push  matters  to  extremes  at  once,  but  the  evident 
want  of  temper  which  such  men  show  rather  serves  to  make 
the  rest  deliberate.  And  such  men  are  for  the  most  part  not 
men  of  weight  or  influence,  intellectual  or  moral.  Keble  and 
Pusey  are  very  conservatively  disposed,  also  Marriott.  I 
believe  even  Mr.  Bennett  is  drawing  back  from  his  first 
movement.    Maskell  and  Allies  are  for  extremes. 

"With  respect  to  the  doctrinal  question,  and  whether  Mr. 
Gorham  is  really  an  actual  heretic  or  not,  I  would  not  for  my 
own  part  commit  myself  to  an  opinion.  I  have  read  enough 
to  see  that  the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration  has  a  history 
appended  to  it,  and  is  not  to  be  decided  upon  wholly  from 
the  verbal  statements  in  the  Church  Office,  but  that  we  are 
bound  to  go  into  the  history  of  it.  And  1  certainly  see  vari- 
ous changes  and  modifications  as  to  the  doctrine,  coming  out 
in  that  history,  as  allowable  within  the  Church.  I  see  state- 
ments made  sometimes,  which,  if  put  into  easy  English  and 
placed  before  some  of  our  orthodox  friends,  would  be  set  down 
at  once  as  heresy,  but  which  occur  in  undoubtedly  orthodox 
authorities.  It  is  possible  that  further  reading  might  undo 
the  effect  of  what  one  has  now  read ;  though  I  do  not  think 
that  probable.  But  I  know  enough  to  see  that  people  make 
very  strong  assertions  on  points  on  which  they  do  not  know 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


203 


much  in  reference  to  this  question.  Archdeacon  Wilberforce's 
book  is  by  no  means  satisfactory.  He  seems  to  me  to  make 
considerable  flaws  both  in  his  reasoning  and  also  in  his  inter- 
pretation of  passages  in  ancient  writers.  He  preached  a 
stirring  sermon  on  the  Eeport  last  Sunday. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

In  his  letters  home  at  this  date,  at  each  returning  quarter, 
there  is  generally  some  mention  of  the  Christian  Remembrancer. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  April  3,  1850. 

I  hope  the  C.  R.  meets  with  your  approbation  ;  I  think  it  a 
decidedly  good  number.  .  .  .  Church's  article — the  last  one 
[Church  and  State] — is  very  good,  and  will  I  hope  have  the 
effect  of  quieting  some  minds  who  think  so  fearfully  of  our 
Eeformation  Erastianism.  It  had  the  effect  upon  me,  as  if  one 
whole  side  of  the  truth,  which  had  been  completely  suppressed 
throughout  this  controversy,  and  all  the  controversy  of  the  last 
twenty  years,  had  now  fairly  come  out.  Of  course  we  shall 
displease  our  ultra  friends  who  are  eager  for  a  convulsion.  1 
confess  I  am  not.  Nor  do  I  see  anything  in  the  temper  of 
those  who  are  which  attracts  me. 

Southey's  poetry  I  have  not  read  for  years,  but  I  remember 
the  impression  it  always  produced  upon  me  was  that  of  a 
brilliant,  lighted-up  stage-scene.  I  allude  to  all  that  gorgeous 
Asiatic  scenery  and  pomp  piled  upon  pomp,  all  very  powerful, 
but  not  an  elevation  of  a  material  simply  natural  to  begin 
with,  as  the  highest  poetry  is,  but  starting  upon  an  unearthly 
unnatural  ground  from  the  first.  ■  The  change  from  his  early 
Utopianism  to  his  common  sense  content  in  after  life,  and 
satisfaction  with  his  pursuits,  and  with  the  world  because 
it  supplied  them,  is  a  change,  some  modification  of  which 
thousands  of  people  go  through,  but  in  Southey  all  comes  out  in 
black  and  white.  The  letter  to  Coleridge  at  the  end  is  truly 
characteristic  of  him — that  is  in  one  of  his  best  aspects : — a 
tremendous  letter  certainly.1    ...  I  was  at  the  X.'s  the  other 

1  A  letter  reproaching  Coleridge  with  his  lavish  display  of  all  the  signs  of 


204 


Letters  of  the 


day.  She  is  rather  criticised  here  in  the  form  that  men  say 
they  like  her  sister  the  better  of  the  two.  This  sort  of  criticism 
is  often  unfair,  for  Miss  X.  is,  after  all,  a  more  active  contributor 
to  people's  amusement  than  the  other.  But  all  people  profess 
to  admire  quietness  of  manner,  and  to  make  that  their  standard  ; 
though,  when  it  comes  to,  they  will  pass  by  the  quiet  one,  and 
go  to  the  vivacious. 

He  comments  on  the  news  of  an  eccentric  marriage,  which 
excited  stronger  surprise  in  some  quarters  : — 

The  news  about  A.  B.  was  a  surprise,  though  I  could 
not  bring  myself  up  to  the  proper  standard  of  grief.  There 
is  something,  however,  almost  grotesque,  that  prevents  deep 
feeling,  the  oddness  of  choice  is  so  much  the  most  prominent 
feature.  After  all,  he  has  done  only  what  Pilchard  Hooker  did, 
but  events  that  happen  now  strike  one  so  very  differently  from 
those  that  happened  three  centuries  ago.  I  hope  he  will  bring 
her  into  some  kind  of  shape,  so  as  to  allow  of  our  seeing  him 
again — for  I  find,  after  all,  my  opinion  of  him  is  not  so  very 
much  altered.  I  have  no  doubt  he  would  talk  exceedingly 
well  and  interestingly  about  the  whole  affair,  and  show  it  in 
such  a  variety  of  aspects  as  would  entirely  deprive  it  of  the 
matter-of-fact,  ordinary  incident  of  a  man  marrying  his  cook, 
and  present  us  with  a  piece  of  poetry  instead. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  May  11,  1850. 
A  petition  to  the  Queen  and  address  to  the  Archbishop 1  are 
now  in  course  of  signature,  generally  among  members  of  Con- 
vocation, resident  or  non-resident,  though  the  canvass  for  non- 
resident names  has  not  yet  completely  commenced.  The 
petition  is  ably  got  up,  and  the  points  brought  forward  are 
good.  The  lawyers  in  town  had  principally  to  do  with  it.  I 
send  you  a  copy.  You  will  see  the  President's  name  appears 
at  the  top.     He  looked  over  it  and  made  some  corrections 

friendship  to  people  he  did  not  really  care  for.  See  Life  and  Correspondence 
of  Robert  Southey,  vol.  i.  p.  266. 

1  On  the  threatened  Royal  Commission  for  University  Reform. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


205 


before  printing.  The  great  apprehension  felt  here,  even  among 
those  who  are  inclined  to  the  cause,  is  as  to  Convocation. 
They  dread  the  row  and  dissensions  which  will  ensue.  This 
apprehension  is  entertained  principally  by  the  officials  of  the 
place.  I  own  I  am  not  much  surprised  at  this  ;  for  a  formal 
move  for  Convocation  is  a  serious  thing — all  parties  have 
agreed  so  long  to  put  down  the  idea,  the  High  Church  party 
quite  as  much  as  the  rest ;  and  in  all  the  only  champion 
of  Convocation  has  been  Whately.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Iu  a  letter  written  May  1850,  James  has  heard  from  Mr. 
Gladstone  on  the  Colonial  Church  question,  who  also  tells  him 
he  is  preparing  a  speech  on  the  University  question,  to  come 
on  on  the  30th  of  Majr.  J.  B.  M.  reports  that  "  the  document 
of  the  Hebdomadal  Board  in  The  Times  was  written  (I  hear) 
by  the  Provost."  About  this  time  my  brother  Tom  spent  a 
few  days  at  Derby,  when  the  subject  of  the  Commission  was 
entered  upon.    His  sister  writes  to  J.  B.  M.,  May  21 : — 

"  I  think  that  Tom  regards  the  Royal  Commission  as  inevi- 
table, and  that  people  will  weaken  their  chance  of  influence 
and  the  weight  of  their  opinion  by  opposing  all  change  as  the 
Heads  are  doing.  Our  argument  was  that  people  did  well  to 
mistrust  Lord  John.  He  seemed  to  say  you  did  not  commit 
yourself  to  him  by  allowing  this  first  step.  '  If  a  man  comes 
with  a  pennyworth  of  watercresses  to  your  door,  and  you  buy 
them,  you  are  not  bound  to  buy  a  dead  horse  if  he  comes  with 
it  an  hour  after.'  He  will  not  allow  it  to  be  an  objection  that 
Lord  John  knows  nothing  of  the  University  system,  as  possibly 
this  deficiency  deprives  him  of  power  to  carry  his  point.  He 
seemed  both  anxious  and  interested  on  the  subject." 

The  Commission  was  appointed. 

To  ins  Sister. 

October  17,  1850. 
The  Heads  of  Houses  are  in  a  state  of  considerable  excite- 
ment about  the  new  Commission,  and  the  presence  of  Jeune  at 


206 


Letters  of  the 


the  Board  led  to  a  discussion  as  to  the  propriety  of  the  same 
person  belonging  to  two  antagonistic  bodies,  as  the  Board  and 
the  Commission  are.  The  discussion  ended  in  the  Board 
resolving  itself  into  a  Committee  containing  all  the  members 
of  the  Board  with  the  single  exception  of  Jeune. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1850  Lord  John  startled  the 
country  by  his  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  November  29,  1850. 
.  .  .  Everybody  is  expecting  considerable  difficulty  from 
Lord  John  in  the  next  Parliament.  The  popular  feeling  is 
thoroughly  expressed  for  some  bill  against  the  Boman 
Catholics ;  but  how  can  Lord  John  do  it  and  retain  his  Irish 
members  ?  And  if  no  bill  is  passed,  and  these  Boman  Catholic 
bishops  go  on  calling  themselves  Bishop  of  Northampton,  etc., 
it  will  be  a  blow  to  the  Queen's  supremacy,  for  the  whole 
world  has  agreed  that  the  Queen's  supremacy  is  involved  in 
this  matter.  D.,  who  is  a  considerable  Bomaniser,  met  Cardinal 
Wiseman  the  other  day  at  Mr.  Scott  Murray's  at  dinner.  There 
was  a  grand  party  of  Boman  Catholic  gentry  and  nobility, 
ladies,  etc.,  and  converts.  All  went  on  their  knees  to  the 
Cardinal.  D.  was  disgusted  with  the  man  himself,  and 
thought  him  vulgar.  He  began  immediately  talking  about 
his  pamphlet  and  its  sale. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  February  6,  1851. 
We  had  our  meeting  on  the  University  Commission  on 
Wednesday,  and  decided  by  26  to  5  against  giving  any  infor- 
mation. There  was  never  known  so  large  a  meeting  of  Fellows. 
At  the  same  time  we  carried  a  resolution  unanimously  that 
something  was  to  be  done  for  the  improvement  and  extension 
of  our  College  system  of  education.  So  we  are  going  to  reform 
ourselves. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Modey,  D.D. 


207 


Speaking  of  certain  recent  clerical  converts  J.  B.  M.  writes  : — 

A.  sets  up  now  quite  as  a  layman.  He  has  taken  a  house, 
and  furnished  it  in  style,  and,  being  a  man  of  good  family  and 
fortune,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  lost  secularly  by  the  change. 

B.  takes  advantage  of  his  lay  character,  and  goes  to  the  theatre. 

C.  has  a  stall  at  the  Opera-house.  No  particular  harm  in  this, 
if  they  really  suppose  themselves  laymen.  .  .  .  And  yet,  under 
all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  when  men  have  put  them- 
selves forward  as  such  tremendous  theologians,  these  things  are 
rather  ridiculous.1 

To  HIS  Sistek. 

Oxford,  March  9,  1851. 

The  excitement  of  the  political  world  has  made  up  for  the 
want  of  events  in  Oxford,  of  which  there  has  been  a  dearth 
throughout  the  term,  the  most  important  fact  I  know  being 
that  Magdalen  College  is  going  to  reform  itself,  and  has  ap- 
pointed a  committee  for  that  object,  of  which  I  am  one.  We 
have  nearly  concluded  our  sittings  now,  and  a  report  is  being 
drawn  up.  We  shall  recommend  to  the  College  to  found  a 
Hall  in  connection  with  itself,  and  adapted  for  the  most  econo- 
mical style  of  life  for  the  students.  Also  the  old  corrupt  system 
of  nomination  to  demyships  will  be  abolished.  As  I  have  had 
my  share  of  the  patronage  of  this  system,  it  is  no  great  sacrifice 
to  me  now  to  recommend  its  abolition. 

The  prospects  of  the  political  world  are  sufficiently  unsettled. 
Nobody  seems  to  imagine  Lord  John  can  continue  much  longer, 
and  if  he  goes,  one  does  not  know  why  the  Peelites  may  not  come 
in.  If  they  do,  and  Gladstone  with  them,  the  University  will 
perhaps  have  cause  to  thank  the  Election  Committee,  which 
brought  in  the  latter,  as  he  is  quite  determined  against  the 
University  Commission.  At  any  rate,  Lord  John  is  not  the 
person  he  was  ;  his  wing  is  cut  short,  and  he  can  no  longer  be 

1  The  eagerness  of  certain  clerical  converts  to  parade  their  emancipation 
from  the  restraints  of  Anglican  orders  was  an  irritating  feature  of  the  day. 
In  my  correspondence  ladies  describe  with  a  sort  of  loathing  encounters 
with  old  acquaintance  whom  they  had  known  in  all  the  decorum  of  clerical 
black,  now  garbed  in  showy  waistcoats,  or  as  one  letter  specifies  in  "  blue 
neckties  and  ginger-coloured  trousers." 


208 


Letters  of  the 


energetically  mischievous.  A  Peel  Ministry  will  be  favourable 
to  the  fair  claims  of  the  Church,  and  disposed  to  give  up  the  old 
Royal  Prerogative  ground.  Lord  Aberdeen  voted  for  the  Bishop 
of  London's  Bill,  and  Gladstone  and  Sidney  Herbert  would 
both  be  strong  on  the  Prerogative  question.  Gladstone,  too, 
has  great  private  influence  over  the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  As  for 
Sir  James  Graham,  he  does  not  care  a  farthing  for  the  Church, 
or  for  equity ;  but  he  would  be  obliged  to  make  terms  with 
Gladstone,  if  he  was  to  have  his  services.  So,  on  the  whole, 
the  claims  of  the  Church  are  looking  up.  The  Roman  Catholics 
have  done  good  service  here,  for  nothing  has  so  damaged  the 
Prerogative  prestige  for  years  as  this  late  affair.  The  real 
weakness  of  the  whole  claim  has  been  so  thoroughly  exposed. 
At  the  same  time,  I  am  far  from  looking  with  unmixed  satis- 
faction on  a  state  of  greater  Church  liberty.  It  will  be  con- 
nected with  all  sorts  of  nuisances,  and  the  advantages  gained 
will  be  much  less  than  people  anticipate.  However,  such  a 
course  of  things  is  the  order  of  the  day,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
age  naturally  brings  it  on.  So,  even  if  one  did  not  want  it,  one 
has  no  choice  in  the  matter. 

I  have  kept  very  well  hitherto,  but  should  not  be  surprised 
if,  as  a  measure  of  precaution,  I  took  a  run  down  to  Malvern 
for  two  or  three  days.  I  have  never  been  there,  and  have  an 
idea  that  the  air  is  exactly  the  thing. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

April  2 G,  1851. 
.  .  .  Our  College  politics  have  had  a  serious  reverse  since  I 
wrote  last.  The  President  has  summarily  squashed  the  whole 
scheme,  on  the  ground  of  being  unstatutable.  The  committee, 
upon  this,  feel  a  little  touched,  just  that  gentle  irritation  being- 
excited,  which  is  rather  pleasing  than  otherwise  to  the  mind. 
His  argument  is  the  most  ridiculous  you  can  conceive,  and  this 
he  probably  knows  ;  but  anything  that  threatens  to  interfere 
with  Magdalen  as  it  is  he  cannot  bear.  Whether  we  shall  pro- 
ceed any  further  or  not  I  don't  know.  The  President  has  an 
absolute  veto,  or  rather  initiative,  in  College.    Perhaps  we  may 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  209 


make  a  proposal  to  get  the  Statute  question  settled  by  an  appeal 
to  the  Visitor.  Meanwhile,  it  is  a  great  triumph  to  the  Univer- 
sity Commission,  who  will,  of  course,  say,  Here  is  a  college 
trying  to  improve  itself,  and  cannot  for  want  of  an  external 
impulse. 

You  would  see  Manning's  and  Hope's  conversions  in  The 
Times.  It  is  James  Eobert  Hope,  not  the  other.  He  has  always 
had  a  strong  R  C.  bias,  and  was  expected  to  go  five  years  ago, 
when  J.  H.  N.  went. 

I  have  been  two  days  with  my  friend  Frank  Faber.  He  is 
always  a  pleasant  person  to  go  to,  being  so  amusing  a  talker, 
and  pointed  and  lively.  He  is  far  superior  to  his  brother 
Frederick  in  this  point,  whose  talk  always  seemed  to  me  arti- 
ficial and  with  effort,  and,  after  all,  nothing  sharp  about  it. — 
Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

In  July  of  1851  his  nephew,  John  Pdckards  Mozley,  was 
elected  King's  Scholar  at  Eton,  as  on  the  same  occasion  his 
brother  Herbert  had  been  two  years  before. 


To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  August  1,  1851. 
I  congratulate  you  all,  and  especially  Jemima,  on  Johnny's 
triumphant  success,  which  justifies  the  bold  predictions  of 
Herbert  from  the  first,  and  is  a  well-merited  reward  to  him  after 
his  exertions.  I  had  been  expecting  for  two  or  three  days  past 
to  hear  some  news,  remembering  that  this  must  be  the  time 
when  the  examination  would  have  to  be  decided;  the  com- 
pleteness of  coming  in  on  the  spot  is  also  a  great  additional 
satisfaction. 

Oxford  is  so  quiet  that  one  really  quite  feels  as  if  one  was 
at  some  place  away  from  it ;  it  loses  its  identity ;  and  a  stroll 
in  the  deep  shades  of  our  walks  in  the  evening  has  the  effect  of 
an  entire  remoteness  from  all  human  things. 

We  voted  at  a  College  meeting  last  week  a  portrait  of  the 
Bishop  of  Exeter  to  be  placed  in  Hall,  he  to  choose  his  own 
painter. — Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

0 


2  IO 


Letters  of  the 


"Writing  August  13,  a  postscript  says  : — 

"  The  Bishop  of  Exeter  has  acknowledged  our  compliment  in 
his  usual  polite  style  to  the  President ;  in  a  letter  in  which  he 
also  alluded  to  the  chance  of  himself  and  the  President  having 
to  suffer  and  be  confessors  together  in  the  cause  of  the  Church. 
The  President,  who  remembers  old  times  about  the  Bishop  of  E., 
was  rather  amused  than  edified  by  the  allusion,  and  thinks  it 
a  capital  joke." 

To  the  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Derby,  May  17,  1852. 

I  am  going  to  give  you  a  small  commission,  which  I  hope 
will  not  take  up  much  time.  There  is  a  certain  book  called 
Stephen's  Collection  of  Ecclesiastical  Statutes,  which  contains 
all  the  Acts  of  Parliament  relating  to  the  Church  specifically 
from  Magna  Charta  downwards. 

I  want  the  period  between  the  Eeformation  and  the  dissolu- 
tion of  Convocation  in  1717.  Could  you  run  over  the  pages, 
and  note  the  sorts  of  Acts  which  passed  through  Earliament 
relating  to  the  Church  during  this  time  ?  I  want  rather  to  know 
whether  any  relating  to  diocesan  or  parochial  organisation, 
or  clerical  residence  or  pluralities,  and  any  of  the  sort  of  Acts 
which  for  the  past  fifty  years  have  been  usual  in  Parliament, 
passed  during  that  time. 

The  reason  I  want  it  is  for  this.  On  looking  over  Lathbury's 
History  of  Convocation,  I  do  not  see  that  Convocation  troubled 
itself  at  all  with  the  temporal  organisation  of  the  Church,  con- 
fining itself  to  canons  about  doctrine  and  ceremonial  services, 
etc.  So  if  any  such  Act  passed  Parliament  then,  it  would  show 
that  the  Convocation  of  that  day  left  such  matters  to  the  Crown 
and  Parliament,  and  did  not  think  that  its  own  confirmation 
in  such  case  was  necessary. 

I  see  the  London  Church  Committee  object  to  Lord  Bland- 
ford's  Act,  on  the  ground  that  assent  of  Convocation  ought  to 
be  had  in  such  a  case. 

I  do  not  remember  that  any  such  Acts  did  pass  Parliament 
in  those  times,  for  things  were  tolerably  at  a  standstill  in  point 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


2  I  I 


of  population,  which  has  been  the  great  reason  of  such  Acts  in 
later  years.  However,  such  a  length  of  time  would  hardly  pass 
without  some  interference  of  Parliament  with  Church  tempora- 
lities. 

It  has  occurred  to  me,  and  I  think  I  have  talked  to  you  about 
it,  that  if  Convocation  does  meet  again,  our  friends  will  be  dis- 
gusted to  find  these  sorts  of  Acts  passing  through  Parliament 
just  as  heretofore,  without  any  reference  to  Convocation,  or  the 
least  idea,  on  the  part  of  any  one  member  of  the  House,  that 
its  opinion  is  to  be  asked  on  the  subject.  One  cannot  expect 
the  House  to  discontinue  its  present  mode  of  legislating  on  such 
subjects,  and  then  the  Church  will  appear  to  many  more  subju- 
gated than  ever ;  for  Convocation  being  met  will  be  simply  a 
spectator  of  such  legislation,  and  not  a  participator  in  it. 

So  I  think  we  ought  to  be  raising  up  some  image,  if  we  can, 
of  the  practical  future  of  Convocation,  to  tell  men  what  they 
are  to  expect,  and  what  Convocation  is  to  do,  and  what  it  is  not 
to  do. 

I  rather  purpose  trying  to  get  an  article  out  of  Gladstone,  on 
the  subject  of  the  Parliamentary  relation  to  Convocation. 

As  you  have  looked  into  the  French  Convocation  history  a 
little,  perhaps  you  might  know  what  were  its  general  subject- 
matters.  What  powers  did  the  Crown  and  Parliament  of 
France  exercise  in  the  temporal  organisation  of  the  French 
Church  ■?  And  did  the  French  Convocation  assent  to  or  share 
in  such  organisation  ?  .  .  . 

I  am  reading  Mill's  Logic,  i.e.  judiciously — those  parts  I  can 
understand.  I  am  much  impressed  with  the  immense  quantity 
of  thought  which  he  has  put  together,  though  one  rather  misses 
that  very  high  sort  of  acuteness  which  one  has  in  Hume  and 
Pascal.  He  seems  to  get  at  his  philosophy  by  patience  and 
accuracy  more  than  genius,  though  one  would  not  say  that  he 
had  none  of  the  latter.  And  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  he 
makes  considerable  blunders  in  consequence  of  some  defect 
here ;  for  patience  and  accuracy  cannot  do  everything,  and 
will  make  mistakes  for  want  of  genius,  just  as  genius  will  make 
mistakes  for  want  of  them  ;  but  I  am  talking  prematurely. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


212 


Letters  of  the 


Derby,  June  21,  1852. 

My  dear  Church, — Your  article  is  an  important  one,1  as 
being  a  judgment  on  a  question  which  has  been  raised  so  much 
lately,  viz.,  the  trustworthiness  of  Pascal's  letters.  And  Pascal 
is  such  a  book,  such  a  centre  and  peg  in  the  war  theological, 
that  it  is  highly  important  it  should  be  kept,  and  the  proper 
defence  be  made  when  it  is  attacked.  M.  Maynard  is  sufficiently 
clever  to  deserve  an  answer,  and  he  exposes  himself  sufficiently 
to  make  him  a  convenient  man  to  answer. 

The  article  has  suffered  a  little  here  and  there  from  your 
having  to  do  two  things  at  once,  collect  information  and  arrange 
it.  I  think  it  is  impossible  to  do  this  myself ;  so  a  point  here 
and  there  loses  by  not  being  sufficiently  brought  out.  But  the 
idea  you  give  of  his  arguments  (M.'s,  I  mean)  is  very  accurate 
and  forcible.  The  view  of  the  sacraments,  as  entertained  in  the 
Roman  Church,  will  be  new  to  people.  At  least  I  had  never 
heard  of  it. 

I  have  not  exactly  expressed  what  I  think  your  article  does, 
viz.,  that  it  lets  one  into  a  whole  interior  state  of  things  in  the 
Eoman  Church, — not  of  an  exaggerated  and  horrible  sort  as 
the  "  disclosures  "  so  called,  which  people  do  not  really  believe 
(I  mean  those  who  are  bent  on  fairness  to  Rome), — but  of  a 
probable  and  ordinary  stamp  of  commonplaceness  and  laxity 
and  worldliness,  such  as  people  will  instantly  recognise  as  true. 
They  have  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag,  in  short,  and  we  have 
taken  advantage  of  it. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  June  of  1852,  J.  B.  M.  went  abroad  with  his  sisters. 
After  taking  the  Rhine  leisurely,  he  writes  : — 

To  the  Rev.  R.  W.  Church. 

Geneva,  July  11,  1852. 
We  have  not  been  very  expeditious  travellers  to  get  no 
further  than  here  after  seventeen  days,  but  we  professed  to 
take  it  easy.  .  .  .  Nothing  we  have  seen  in  the  way  of  scenery 
is  equal  to  the  upper  (I  mean)  Vevay  end  of  the  Lake  of 
Geneva ;  it  is  truly  Acherontian.     It  had  that  dark  purple 

1  "  Pascal  and  Ultramontanism  :  "  Christian  Remembrancer.    July  1 80S. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Afozley,  D.D. 


213 


mist  on  it  when  we  first  saw  it,  out  of  which  the  tremen- 
dous rocks  on  the  Savoy  side  gloomed  awfully.  The  opposite 
bank,  too,  is  so  mild  and  agricultural,  with  lonesome  and 
quiet  villages,  that  when  you  looked  from  your  steamer,  first 
on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other,  you  might  fancy  the  water 
dividing  earth  from  "Epe/3o?.  Such  scenes  must  have  sug- 
gested to  Homer  and  Virgil  their  ideas  on  such  subjects.  I 
should  think  that  when  Ulysses,  after  rowing  nine  days  on  the 
ocean,  at  last  reached  the  £,6$>ov  rjepoevTa,  and  saw  the  ghost  of 
Achilles,  Ajax,  etc.,  it  must  have  been  some  such  place.  .  .  . 
We  took  in  the  Lake  of  Geneva  at  the  special  recommendation 
of  my  brother  Tom,  who  was  wonderfully  taken  with  it  last 
year.  .  .  .  Geneva  is  certainly  a  taking  place,  and  looks  by  no 
means  Calvinistic. 

I  cannot  exactly  make  out  what  sort  of  thing  the  National 
Swiss  Church  is.  Where  I  have  introduced  the  subject  I  have 
always  observed  an  inclination  to  stick  up  for  it,  as  against  the 
Free  Church,  and  that  in  religious  quarters :  e.g.  travelling 
with  a  Moravian  by  diligence,  a  good  sort  of  man — who  talked 
of  Scott  and  Newton — he  said  the  Free  Church  of  the  Canton 
Vaud  was  but  a  small  section,  the  mass  of  the  people  going 
with  the  National  Church.  I  pushed  him  with  the  Geneva 
Church,  asking  if  the  National  Church  of  Switzerland  as  a 
body  had  religious  communion  with  the  German  Church  ? — 
a  question  which  he  parried  by  saying  that  each  Canton  had 
its  own  Established  Church,  which  had  not  necessarily  com- 
munion with  the  Churches  of  other  countries.  In  an  Evan- 
gelical bookseller's  shop  here  there  was  the  same  kind  of 
shiftiness.  I  saw  immediately  that  the  subject  was  an  unplea- 
sant one.  What  was  the  difference  between  the  National 
Church  and  the  Free  Church  ?  "  Oh,  pas  beaucoup !"  I 
confessed  myself  surprised,  and  said  I  understood  there  was  a 
serious  difference  in  doctrine.  But  the  man  shrugged  up  his 
shoulders  higher  and  higher,  and  said  "  C'est  suivant,  Mon- 
sieur." He  admitted,  however,  afterwards  that  the  National 
Church  of  Geneva  denied  the  divinity  of  Christ.  The  Free 
Church  has  only  5000  here. 

The  Roman  Catholics  on  the  Ehine  are  having  vernacular 


2I4 


Letters  of  the 


services  at  a  great  rate.  They  are  more  prominent  than  they 
were,  I  think.  At  Cologne  the  Grand  Mass  was  very  poorly 
attended,  but  perhaps  that  might  be  owing  to  the  choir  being 
blocked  up.  Again,  at  vespers,  there  was  literally  nobody 
except  ourselves.  The  popular  services  were  some  vernacular 
litanies.  At  Strasburg  there  were  two  in  the  Cathedral,  very 
effective,  about  half  an  hour  each,  with  a  sermon  after  them. 
The  organ  accompanied  with  full  power,  and  the  whole  congre- 
gation singing  in  the  nave.  It  was  in  fact  little  more  than 
hymn-singing  and  a  sermon.  I  sometimes  wish  our  Church 
would  adapt  herself  in  the  same  way  to  the  wants  of  the 
people. 

The  Germans  being  a  nation  of  singers,  the  Church  seems  to 
make  everything  singing  there.  .  .  . 

Best  remembrances  to  Johnson  and  his  wife,  and  the  Ogles. 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

It  was  during  this  excursion,  when  the  party  had  reached 
Como,  that  the  news  came  to  them  of  the  death  of  Mrs.  Thomas 
Mozley.  She  had  been  long  in  weak  health ;  but  when  her 
sisters-in-law  took  leave  of  her  in  passing  through  London  no 
fear  of  the  coming  event,  so  imminent,  was  in  their  thoughts. 
There  had  always  been  a  strong  mutual  regard  and  appreciation 
between  her  and  her  brother-in-law,  shown  in  many  pleasant 
instances  in  the  family  correspondence. 

J.  B.  M.  to  T.  M. 

Como,  July  24,  1852. 
My  dear  Tom, — The  sad  news  has  just  arrived.  It  is 
indeed  a  shock  to  us  all.  I  feel  all  sorts  of  recollections 
crowding  upon  me  now  that  she  has  passed  away.  It  is  a  deep 
blow  to  one's  spirits,  yet  I  could  truly  wish  always  to  be  in 
the  state  of  mind  in  which  I  am  now,  if  one  could  be  without 
the  occasion  which  causes  it.  Such  events  are  indeed  wonder- 
fully calming  and  subduing,  and  everything  in  this  world  seems 
of  no  importance,  and  the  love  of  the  world  loses  its  hold  upon 
one  for  the  time,  when  they  take  place.    I  need  not  say  how 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


215 


unexpected  the  news  is.  None  of  us  were  at  all  prepared 
for  it. 

We  are,  you  may  easily  imagine,  in  no  humour  to  enjoy 
any  more  Italian  scenery,  and  shall  leave  this  place  by  the 
quickest  route  for  England  immediately.  I  am  glad  to  hear 
from  Jemima  that  you  bear  your  loss  as  every  one  who  knows 
you  would  expect  you  to  do. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

On  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  "Wellington  the  vacant  Chancel- 
lorship becomes  an  important  subject. 

To  the  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

September  26,  1852. 
My  dear  Church, — In  case  Lord  Derby  should  not  accept 
the  offer — an  event  which,  I  think,  is  on  the  cards — and  Lord 
Eedesdale  is  not  put  up,  which  appears  certain,  as  one  has 
not  heard  of  anybody  seriously  proposing  him,  I  should  wish 
my  name  to  be  put  to  a  requisition  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  ; 
and  so  leave  it  with  you.  The  more  I  think  of  Lord  Derby's 
position  as  Premier,  the  more  I  see  difficulties — or  what 
should  be  such — to  his  acceptance  of  the  Chancellorship.  I 
cannot  think,  with  The  Guardian,  that  a  statesman  as  such  is 
cut  out;  for  this  would  be  simply  driving  us  to  take  some 
stupid  man  every  time.  But  a  statesman  and  a  Premier — under 
the  present  circumstances  of  the  University — will  certainly 
find  himself  in  an  awkward  situation  as  Chancellor.  For  he 
cannot  avoid,  if  he  stays  in  office,  acting  in  some  way  respecting 
the  University.  For  to  do  nothing  will  be  to  act,  and  to  act 
decisively.  And  he  cannot  act  as  Premier  without  coming 
into  some  collision  with  his  office  as  Chancellor.  The  public 
will  say,  You  are  an  advocate,  not  an  impartial  man  to  legislate. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  Lord  Derby  does  not  feel  himself  at  all 
sure  of  office,  he  may  say  that  it  does  not  suit  him  to  reject 
a  permanent  position  on  account  of  so  slippery  a  one  as  a 
Premiership. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  1852  J.  B.  M.  visits  his  brother  Arthur,  then  curate  of 
Hingham,  of  which  the  Hon.  W.  Wodehouse  was  rector. 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sister. 

Hingham,  November  1,  1852. 

It  was  a  long  time  since  I  had  seen  your  hand,  and  I  was  glad 
to  see  it  again.  I  stayed  three  weeks  at  Yarmouth  ;  through 
half  of  that  time  I  had  the  advantage  of  Arthur's  and  Eliza's 
company.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  reason  is  that  there  is 
nothing  else  to  see,  but  I  think  the  sea  is  seen  to  great  advan- 
tage at  Yarmouth,  nor  do  I  remember  more  enjoying  walks  on 
the  beach.  It  comes  in  with  considerable  force  sometimes. 
About  sunset  the  lights  on  it  were  particularly  good,  especially 
when  it  was  calm ;  then  the  nursery  of  bloaters  really  looked 
quite  spiritual.  I  indulged  in  a  few  novels  recommended  by 
the  Wodehouses :  Markland  and  Margaret  Maitland,  by  the 
same  author,  are  very  good,  though  with  defects,  and  wanting 
incident  and  filling  up.  But  there  is  a  genial  element  of 
domesticity  in  the  principal  character  in  each,  which  is  brought 
out  very  well ;  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  humour,  which  is  a 
great  advantage.    Novels  are  generally  very  deficient  in  it.  . 

Mrs.  Norton  is  to  me  a  very  stupid  novelist,  if  one  is  to 
judge  from  a  certain  Stuart  of  Bunleath,  full  of  drawling  and 
exaggerated  sentiment  from  beginning  to  end,  without  incident 
or  humour ;  and  depending  really,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  on 
certain  awkward  positions  of  things, — as  approaches  to  the 
vicious, — for  its  interest  at  all :  there  being,  I  suppose,  some 
people  sufficiently  morbid  to  like  the  excitement  of  that,  without 
absolutely  approving  it. — Yours  affectionately,         J.  B.  M. 

In  1853  a  new  election  was  called  for  on  Mr.  Gladstone's 
taking  office  under  Sir  James  Graham's  administration. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  January  9,  1853. 
The  election  is  going  on  well ;  Gladstone  eighty-seven  ahead. 
I  hardly  expect,  with  this  majority  and  the  fact  of  two  defeats, 
many  more  will  be  brought  up  on  Percival's  side.  .  .  .  Keble 
and  Moberly  came  up  the  first  day,  and  dined  in  Oriel,  where 
I  met  them.  Keble  seemed  in  good  spirits,  and  not  to  care 
about  the  coalition — very  angry  with  Denison.     But  Isaac 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


Williams  is  strong  against  Gladstone,  I  hardly  know  on  what 
exact  ground,  whether  political  or  some  other.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed that  all  these  charges  have  a  tendency  to  increase  a  sort 
of  Liberalism  even  in  quarters  most  sacred  from  such  intrusion. 
And  a  High  Church  Liberalism  bids  fair  to  be  the  order  of  the 
day.  The  regular  Liberals,  however,  are  only  half  supporters  of 
Gladstone,  and  come  up  evidently  with  some  reluctance.  The 
Globe  for  some  days  hinted  very  plainly  the  idea  that  it  would  be 
a  good  thing  if  the  University  should  turn  G.  out.  This  was  not 
a  good  start  for  a  coalition  of  parties.  And  the  first  two  days' 
poll  certainly  looked  very  like  the  Liberals  keeping  back. 
However,  The  Globe  and  the  Liberals  have  both  come  round. 
It  is  certainly  surprising,  and  shows  great  power  in  Gladstone, 
the  way  in  which  he  contrives  to  retain  two  large  parties,  who 
hate  each  other,  both  supporting  him. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Magdalen  College,  Feb.  10,  1853. 
My  question  comes  on  on  Friday  evening,  at  the  Tutors' 
Association,  which  is  held  at  Oriel.  1  wish  you  could  get 
your  duty  done  next  Sunday,  and  come  up  for  a  few  days 
till  it  is  settled.  As  far  as  I  have  sounded  men  hitherto, 
it  is  approved  of,  the  only  objections  being  as  to  some  matters 
of  detail,  and  how  to  work  it  with  the  present  viva  voce  system. 
Some  men  too,  otherwise  favourable,  rather  cling  to  the 
Hebdomadal  Board  as  the  channel  of  communicating  evidence 
to  the  public. 

On  the  whole,  I  am  disposed  to  leave  these  questions  open. 
Let  the  committee,  or  committees,  charged  with  the  report 
settle  with  themselves  whether  they  wait ;  they  will  know  by 
thinking  it  over,  whether  their  view  is  clear  or  requires  infor- 
mation from  others,  whether  they  feel  their  minds  made  up. 
And  as  to  the  Hebdomadal  Board,  after  we  have  collected  the 
evidence,  let  us  consider  whether  we  shall  send  it  on  to  the 
Hebdomadal  Board  to  print,  or  print  it  on  our  own  account. 
My  main  point  is  secured  if  the  evidence  is  collected  and  pub- 
lished in  any  form ;  though  it  is  of  advantage  that  evidence 
should  be  brought  out,  and  put  in  a  good  point  of  view  by  a 


2l8 


Letters  of  the 


favourable  report,  instead  of  being  snubbed,  as  it  may  be 
snubbed,  by  the  Hebdomadal  Board  report.  My  proposition  is, 
that  we  collect  evidence  (which  the  Hebdomadal  Board  is  not 
really  doing)  by  asking  for  it,  and  drawing  men's  attention  to 
particular  points;  when  collected,  then  publish  it  in  one 
way  or  another. 

To  his  Sister. 

February  15,  1853. 

I  find  myself  in  the  thick  of, — where  I  was  when  I  wrote 
last, — University  questions,  and  shall  remain  so  for  some  time. 
I  hardly  know  what  has  made  me  gratuitously  undertake  such 
a  subject,  except  I  may  venture  to  believe  that  it  is  public 
spirit.  Certainly  I  came  up  to  Oxford  this  time  resolved  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  them,  and  to  pursue  quietly  my  theo- 
logical reading.  But  one  cannot  live  in  the  midst  of  any  world, 
and  refuse  all  sympathy  with  its  interests  and  agitations.  At 
least  I  cannot ;  some  can.  Accordingly,  I  have  now  an  article 
in  the  Quarterly,  to  which  I  am  engaged.  Gladstone  introduced 
me  to  Lockhart,  who  was  very  civil  and  ready  to  have  one  : — 
this  by  writing ;  I  did  not  see  him.  The  changes  recommended 
in  the  blue-book  are  so  preposterous  and  unjust  that  one  could 
not  contemplate  the  shame  of  their  being  accepted  without 
indignation  ;  and  in  the  meantime  nothing  is  being  written  on 
the  other  side ;  and  the  idea  has  been  gaining  ground  that  the 
blue-book  was  being  accepted.  So,  by  way  of  offering  my 
feeble  opposition  to  such  a  result,  I  undertake  this  article.  I 
have  also  induced  the  Tutors'  Association  to  enter  on  the  work 
of  collecting  evidence  on  the  other  side,  it  having  confined  itself 
hitherto  to  viva  voce  discussion.  As  all  the  productions  of  the 
family  pen  have  an  interest  to  the  home  world,  I  enclose  a 
paper  I  sent  out  a  fortnight  ago,  in  addition  to  which  I  read 
a  paper  on  the  subject  last  Friday  to  the  Tutors'  Association, 
and  the  motion  was  formally  discussed  last  night,  and  carried 
by  a  largish  majority.  I  hope  to  get  a  good  deal  of  valuable 
evidence,  and  on  the  side  of  moderate  reform,  without  sweeping- 
measures  upon  the  Colleges  en  masse. 

A  pamphlet  is  coming  out  on  the  election  by  Sir  S.  North- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


cote ;  and  the  Provost  has  written  a  letter.  The  Bishop  of 
Oxford  preached  at  St.  Mary's  yesterday  a  University  sermon, 
pronounced  to  be  very  useful  for  the  under-graduates  by  the 
Fellows  and  Masters.  Lord  Derby  and  the  President  are  ex- 
changing polite  pieces  of  scholarship.  The  President  sent  him 
a  copy  of  a  little  tract,  with  an  inscription  in  Latin,  and  Lord 
Derby  has  sent  the  President  a  copy  of  Greek  verses  written 
by  himself  on  the  President. 

To  the  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Oxford,  Febrvary  16,  1853. 
I  carried  my  motion  at  the  Tutors'  Association  on  Monday, 
by  a  majority  of  14  to  5.  The  meeting  was  not  so  large  a 
one  (there  were  three  or  four  men  who  did  not  vote  as  I  could 
have  wished),  but  large  enough  perhaps  for  the  purpose, 
especially  as  all  knew  of  the  scheme,  and  therefore  if  they 
stayed  away  could  not  have  felt  hostile  to  it.  So  now  we 
must  set  to  work.  No  committee  is  appointed  yet ;  that,  I 
understand,  is  my  privilege  to  propose.  I  wish  you  would 
think  over  any  questions  that  may  occur  to  you,  and  give  us 
the  benefit  of  them.  I  must  confess  to  a  great  hankering 
after  rather  an  audacious  effort;  fairly  asking  (the  reason 
might  be  modestly  and  solidly  stated  in  a  circular)  the  dis- 
tinguished merchants,  manufacturers,  attorneys,  barristers,  and 
the  representatives  of  the  different  professions  in  the  country, 
What  are  the  wants  they  feel  with  respect  to  a  University 
education  ? — Whether  they  want  it  at  all  for  their  young 
men  ? — What  modification  in  the  teaching  of  the  place  would 
be  required  if  they  did  want  it  ? — How  much  time  could  be 
spared  from  business  education  ?  I  gathered  from  S.  Denison's 
evidence  that  there  ivas  a  want  felt  of  this  kind  by  the 
barristers.  But  really,  after  all  the  talk  there  has  been  for  some 
years  about  University  extension,  one  feels  one's-self  almost 
entirely  in  the  dark  as  to  how  far  it  is  really  wanted  and  will 
be  taken  advantage  of. — Yours  affectionately,         J.  B.  M. 

Early  this  year  there  was  a  gathering  at  Oxford  on  the  ques- 
tion of  petitioning  the  Parliament  against  the  University  Bill. 


220 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  April  1,  1853. 
I  have  been  so  much  engaged  in  this  last  contest,  that  I 
have  not  thought  of  anything  else  for  the  last  week.  Very 
few  of  both  sides  have  come  up  in  proportion  to  the  appeals 
made.  I  have  been  against  the  petition.  I  think  the  bill, 
on  the  whole,  a  good  one,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  many 
modifications  will  be  made  in  Committee.  Its  postponement, 
moreover,  beyond  this  session  would  only  have  thrown  the 
University  on  a  more  uncertain  future,  with  less  favourable 
administrators  perhaps,  and  a  reformed  Parliament.  Our 
line  was  clearly  for  an  early  settlement  of  the  question.  .  .  . 
The  Bishop  of  Oxford  was  very  nearly  coming  up  to  vote,  and 
only  prevented  by  the  advice  of  his  friends.  He  has  been 
working  up  men.  It  is  astonishing  how  impossible  it  is  to 
produce  anything  like  a  large  gathering  on  the  most  important 
question  put  before  the  University  for  two  centuries.  And  yet 
it  is  easily  explained :  everybody  knows  the  mind  of  Govern- 
ment and  Parliament  is  made  up,  and  that  either  assent  or 
protest  will  not  have  any  effect  on  the  question  of  the  bill 
passing  or  not.  Gladstone  has  been  surprising  everybody  here 
by  the  ubiquity  of  his  correspondence.  Three-fourths  of  the 
Colleges  have  been  in  communication  with  him,  on  various 
parts  of  the  bill  more  or  less  affecting  themselves.  He  answers 
everybody  by  return  of  post,  fully  and  at  length,  quite  enter- 
ing into  their  case,  and  showing  the  greatest  acquaintance 
with  it. 

Arthur  came  up  at  my  summons,  not  on  the  whole  sorry  at 
a  little  change  from  Hingham,  for  a  few  days. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  sister  Elizabeth  he  writes  of  Lord  Derby's  Instal- 
lation : — 

June  15,  1853. 

Dear  Elizabeth, — My  labours  are  not  over,  but  are  getting 
thicker  as  they  approach  the  close.  Church  is  up  for  a  few 
days.    Things  are  quiet  again  after  all  the  bustle. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  221 


Lord  Derby  is  considered  to  have  carried  off  the  Installation 
well.  I  attended  his  levee,  and  thought  him  certainly  happy 
in  his  air  and  manner.  But  he  has  no  right  to  talk  of  smiling 
and  being  a  villain,  for  his  face  wrinkles  into  countless  smiles 
at  a  moment's  notice  out  of  the  most  sour  basis.  I  saw  his 
reception  of  the  Bishop  of  Oxford.  At  the  levee  a  general 
smile  went  the  round  of  the  crowd,  and  only  one  quotation  was 
in  all  memories.1 

Disraeli  was  the  great  lion ;  but  that  worthy  Vice- 
Chancellor  at  the  "Worcester  dinner  considered  that  the  whole 
assembly,  nobles  and  commons,  had  come  there  for  the  express 
purpose  of  hearing  him  talk  on  religion  and  morals ;  which 
he  did,  on  the  most  lenient  computation,  for  two  hours.  So 
Disraeli  left  without  saying  a  word.  Jeune,  at  the  Pembroke 
dinner,  was  equally  lengthy,  with  the  addition  of  coarseness ;  as 
a  specimen,  he  gave  as  a  toast  "  the  Church,  the  Queen,  and  the 
ladies  of  England  !  "—Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Rev.  B.  W.  Church. 

Oxford,  November  15,  1853. 
...  I  have  not  told  you  how  much  we  all  of  us  enjoyed 
Scotland.  There  is  such  variety,  the  sea  is  a  complete  archi- 
pelago of  small  islands,  many  of  them  very  fine  in  form,  and 
with  fine  mountains.  A  view  from  a  height  on  a  sunny  day  is 
quite  Grecian.  Three  of  us,  i.e.  Arthur,  young  Kempe,  and  myself 
went  to  Skye,  which  was  great  fun — both  the  scenery  and  the 
characters  we  came  across.  The  scenery  is  volcanic  and  Scandi- 
navian, huge  yellow  mountains  rising  up  with  as  sharp  outlines  as 

1  What  occurred  on  the  occasion  of  the  Bishop's  speech  on  the  Canada 
Clergy  Reserves  was  as  follows: — "Lord  Derby  moved  an  amendment  to 
the  bill,  and  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  speaking  on  the  question,  quoted  Burke 
as  having  said  that  the  Americans  became  intractable  whenever  they  saw 
the  least  attempt  to  wrest  freedom  from  them  by  force,  or  shuffle  it  from 
them  by  chicane.  Lord  Derby  having  taken  exception  to  these  words,  the 
Bishop  explained  that  the  allusion  was  made  with  a  smile,  and  was  not 
intended  to  be  offensive.  Lord  Derby  then  retorted  with  quoting,  'A  man 
may  smile  and  smile  and  be  a  villain.'  Lord  Clarendon  came  to  the  Bishop's 
rescue.  Lord  Derby's  amendment  was  lost  by  40  votes.  He  afterwards 
complimented  the  Bishop  of  Oxford  on  his  power  of  taking  a  joke." — Life 
of  Bishop  Wilberforce,  vol.  ii.  p.  186. 


222 


Letters  of  the 


if  they  were  cut  out  of  brown  paper,  and  looking  for  all  the  world 
like  mountains  on  the  stage.  A  cluster  of  them  looked  quite  a 
fit  place  for  an  Odin  Hades,  where  giants  dance  among  copper 
kettles  a  mile  high.  I  should  like  to  have  a  talk  with  you,  and 
compare  Scotch  with  Grecian  experiences  of  scenery.  We  are 
moving  slowly  here,  the  Tutors'  Association  preparing  a  College 
report ;  the  Heads  very  taciturn.  No  sign  of  the  report  yet. 
I  expect  a  tussle  about  the  constitution  point. 

I  do  not  envy  you  your  task  of  reviewing  Maurice  in  the 
G.,  yet  I  have  to  do  it  in  the  C.  B.  It  is  a  pity  to  see  a  man 
losing  himself  and  becoming  a  ruin,  from  a  radical  mistake  of 
thinking  himself  a  philosopher.  Some  of  the  cut-up  reviews  did 
much  good  in  this  way.  They  put  down  a  man  at  the  outset. 
But  Maurice  has  been  petted  and  told  he  is  a  philosopher,  till 
he  naturally  thinks  he  is  one.  And  he  has  not  a  clear  idea  in 
his  head.  It  is  a  reputation  that,  the  instant  it  is  touched,  must 
go  like  a  card-house. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  Christmas  Day,  1853. 
My  dear  Church, —  ...  So  the  first  stone  of  the  coalition  is 
beginning  to  loosen,  or  rather  is  already  out.  Lake  has  been 
in  London  and  seen  Lawley,  Gladstone's  secretaiy,  who  is  fierce 
against  the  unpatriotic  conduct  of  Lord  P.,  and  also  talks  of 
Lord  John's  jealousy  of  the  over  proportion  of  work  and  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  Peelite  section  of  the  Cabinet.  The 
Keform  Bill  is  his  point,  having  pledged  himself  to  one  just 
before  he  was  turned  out.  A  report  is  going  about  to-day 
here  of  Lord  P.'s  return  to  office — not  a  very  credible  one.  I 
suppose  the  Eeform  Bill  will  be  the  first  thing  when  Parliament 
meets,  and,  as  dissolution  and  fresh  Cabinet  depend  on  its  fate, 
there  is,  after  all,  no  knowing  when  our  University  matter 
comes  on.  Have  you  seen  the  report  of  the  Heads  ?  It  is  very 
weak,  partly  from  the  Provost's  not  being  well,  and  partly  from 
the  awkward  shape  which  was  laid  down  for  it  by  the  Heads, 
a  running  comment  on  the  recommendations  of  the  Commission. 
So  it  is  a  sort  of  endless  series  of  negatives  and  protests — very 
little  arguing  or  good  statement.  It  is  the  only  document,  in 
my  recollection,  in  which  they  have  treated  the  Masters  with 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


223 


due  respect.  On  the  eve  of  their  own  dissolution ! — a  lesson  to 
oligarchies,  if  oligarchies  ever  received  lessons,  or  there  were 
any  oligarchies  now — which  there  hardly  are — to  receive  them. 
In  the  uncertainties  of  all  prospects,  one  naturally  fastens  on 
the  retributions  which  most  gratify  one's  moral  feelings. 

Lake  and  Eawlinson  have  been  seeing  Gladstone.  He  is 
very  strong  against  the  religious  animus  of  the  Commission, 
but  hints  on  more  reconstruction  than  some  of  us  like.  Thus, 
he  will  both  reduce  the  number  of  Fellowships,  and  also  alter 
some  of  the  others  to  terminable  ones.  No  bill  is  as  yet  made 
out,  and  only  the  beginnings  are  as  yet  under  the  attention  of 
Government.  Jowett  dined  with  Gladstone  the  other  day,  and 
was  disgusted  to  find  him  strong  against  the  Commission,  and 
all  the  religious  ideas  in  it,  and  talking  against  Locke  and  for 
Butler  ;  that  the  loss  of  four  Colleges  would  be  less  than  that 
of  the  Analogy — in  fact,  quite  incorrigibly  bigoted.  This  is 
Lake's  account — whose  policy,  by  the  way,  rather  is  to  impress 
one  with  G.'s  conservative  religionism,  and  on  Lake  and 
Eawlinson's  side  with  G.'s  collegiate  reforms.  .  .  .  — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sistek. 

January  23,  1854. 
We  are  likely  to  have  for  once  an  election  without  a  con- 
test, every  candidate  having  declined  on  the  other  side.  I  am 
not,  however,  altogether  contented  with  Sir  W.  Heathcote,  and 
should  much  have  preferred  Eoundell  Palmer.  The  residents 
as  a  body  are  in  his  favour,  the  general  desire  being  here  to 
have  distinguished  men  of  some  kind,  who  represent  the  spirit 
of  the  age  in  its  unblamable  features.  It  is  rather  a  relapse  to 
the  country  gentleman  taking  Sir  W.  H.  However,  he  is  Keble's 
patron  and  friend,  and  a  very  excellent  man.  It  is  certainly 
odd  enough  that,  with  every  effort  against  it,  Puseyites  still  get 
possession  of  the  University  representation — now  the  whole  of 
it.  .  .  .  Eoundell  Palmer  was  formally  asked  to  stand  by  a 
meeting  of  residents,  and  declined,  in  deference  to  the  known 
bias  for  Sir  W.  H.  among  his  friends  in  London.    A  second 


224 


Letters  of  the 


meeting  asked  him  again ;  he  declined  again.  But  even  at  a 
third  meeting  a  messenger  was  sent  to  lay  the  state  of  the  case 
before  Sir  W.  H.  His  answer  was,  that  personally  he  felt  dis- 
posed to  withdraw,  but  that  his  friends  had  a  claim  on  him. 
His  friends  advised  him  to  stand,  and  so  the  matter  ended. 

The  absence  of  a  contest  is  a  gain.  Still  I  suppose  we  shall 
have  the  rather  uncomfortable  reflection  soon  of  Eonndell 
Palmer  making  a  good  speech  on  University  matters  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  Sir  William  Heathcote  a  mediocre  one,  so  that  one 
man  will  do  the  work  and  another  have  the  honours. 

Scott  stayed  a  day  here  on  his  way  to  Cuddesden,  where  he 
has  been  staying,  consulting  with  the  Bishop  on  Convocation 
matters.  They  are  in  doubt  as  to  their  course.  Archdeacon 
Wilberforce  was  there,  and  attended  two  of  the  election  meetings. 
The  Bishop  is  a  friend  of  Sir  William  Heathcote.  Scott  seems  to 
get  on  with  him  very  well,  and  is  getting  quite  an  amicus  curiaz 
of  the  episcopal  bench ;  though  to  see  him  in  his  travelling 
costume  he  is  more  like  a  foreign  cavalry  officer  than  an 
Anglican  ecclesiastic,  clad  in  bearskins  and  cloaks  of  the  highest 
lay  order. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  January  29,  1854. 

My  dear  Church, —  ...  So  we  are  to  have  no  contest.  This 
is  satisfactory,  and  justifies  the  return  of  Sir  W.  H.,  which  I 
should  have  been  otherwise  somewhat  disposed  to  grumble  at, 
all  my  feelings  being  for  E.  Palmer.  Why  have  you  not  come 
up  ?   They  have  been  expecting  you  at  the  Observatory. 

We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  College  stir — a  majority  of  one 
having  carried  at  a  meeting  that  it  was  allowable  to  ask  for 
enabling  powers  to  alter  our  statutes,  in  spite  of  the  oath.  I 
was  one  of  the  majority.  The  oath  to  ask  for  no  change  in 
statutes  seems  to  me  to  be  exactly  on  the  same  ground  as  the 
oath  to  observe  them ;  and  that  if  we  interpret  the  one  oath 
liberally  we  may  the  other.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Having  the  answer  to  this  letter  before  me,  I  may  use  the 
privilege  to  insert  here  a  comment  on  the  last  paragraph  : — 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


225 


To  J.  B.  M. 

"  Your  view  of  the  oath  is  one  I  should  like  to  see  worked 
out.  But  it  is  to  me  a  nasty  subject,  and  there  seems  a 
difference  between  an  oath  directed  to  one  particular  point  and 
an  oath  directed  to  a  general  matter  comprehending  a  great 
variety  of  multifarious  points  of  unequal  importance.  But  it 
is  clear  that  there  ought  to  be  some  way  out  of  a  restriction 
which  stops  all  improvement." 

The  year  1854  ends  with  the  death  of  the  President  of 
Magdalen  in  his  hundredth  year. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  December  23,  1854. 
You  will  have  seen  in  the  papers  before  receiving  this  the 
death  of  our  poor  old  President.  Long  as  it  has  been  before  us, 
it  has  rather  taken  us  by  surprise  at  last.  He  has  been  getting 
gradually  weaker  for  some  time;  but  so  gradually  that  he 
seemed  as  if  he  might  go  on  for  another  year  or  two.  Last 
Sunday  a  change  was  observed  in  him ;  still  he  had  his  usual 
party  at  dinner,  and,  though  he  did  not  come  down  to  dinner, 
saw  them  at  tea.  He  was  more  sleepy  than  usual  then.  The 
next  day  he  was  worse,  but  on  Tuesday  revived  so  much  that 
Bloxam  lost  all  immediate  apprehension,  and  the  President 
himself  said — "  I  think  I  shall  be  a  little  longer  with  you,  Sir." 
On  Wednesday,  however,  the  weakness  returned  and  increased 
till  his  physician,  Dr.  Jackson,  thought  it  proper  to  call  in  Dr. 
Acland.  They  both  entirely  gave  him  up.  .  .  .  When  1  went 
to  dinner  in  Common  Eoom,  however,  on  Thursday,  I  was 
surprised  to  hear  all  at  once  that  it  was  a  matter  of  hours  with 
him.  His  head  wandered  a  good  deal  till  his  death,  with  clear 
intervals.  On  Thursday  stimulants  were  given  him  to  enable 
him  to  do  some  little  business  that  he  had  put  off,  but  they 
failed.  He  thought,  among  other  things,  that  Cholmeley  was 
married,  and  had  brought  his  wife  to  the  President's  lodgings, 
and  was  anxious  there  should  be  a  room  for  them.  He  had 
little  positive  pain,  but  much  uneasiness,  which  went  off  at  last. 
He  is  to  be  buried  in  chapel.    He  had  once  intimated  a  desire 

p 


226 


Letters  of  the 


to  be  buried  at  Tylehurst,  but  bad  never  alluded  to  it  for  years, 
and  so  his  family  have  it  in  the  College.  He  has  died,  I  hear, 
without  any  will,  but  only  some  directions.  Whether  this  is 
delay,  or  no  will  was  considered  by  him  the  best  will,  I  hardly 
know. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — Johnson  is  the  President  of  the  Astronomical  Society 
next  year. 

Oxford,  December  28,  1854. 

My  dear  Church, — The  funeral  is  to-morrow,  and  will  be 
largely  attended.  It  is  curious  that  the  President  left  no  will. 
.  .  .  The  President  has  by  a  deed  of  gift  given  his  library  to 
Durham,  but  the  deed,  though  signed,  has  never  been  delivered  ; 
being  brought  to  light  for  the  first  time  after  his  death.  So  it 
will  probably  be  unsound.  .  .  . 

The  President  did  not  think  he  was  going  to  die  so  soon, 
but  that  he  should  linger.  He  was  only  in  bed  two  days.  He 
was  wandering  a  good  deal  of  the  time,  and  within  five  minutes 
of  his  death  was  telling  his  old  stories  to  an  imaginary  visitor 
by  his  side,  whom  he  addressed  every  now  and  then  in  his 
usual  way,  known  to  all  of  us,  "  Do  you  hear  me,  Sir?"  which 
he  generally  said  when  he  suspected  the  wandering  of  his 
auditor. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Writing  the  last  day  of  the  year  he  adds  some  further 
particulars : — 

More  facts  came  out  about  the  President  and  his  leaving  no 
will.  A  will  had  been  acUially  drawn  up,  and  only  wanted  his 
signature  when  the  last  weakness  came  on  and  increased  so 
rapidly  that  even  this  could  not  be  given.  The  will  would 
have  left  a  large  part  of  the  property  away  from  the  family  and 
left  it  to  charities.  Mrs.  Eouth  is  left  with  a  very  indifferent 
jointure,  the  interest  of  £12,000. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

And  in  a  letter  dated  January  16: — 

The  President's  library,  after  all,  goes  to  Durham.  Counsel's 
opinion  was  taken.  What  determined  it  in  favour  of  Durham 
seems  to  have  been  that  the  passing  of  the  property  to  a  cor- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


227 


porate  body  would  not  have  been  any  fraud  upon  Government, 
as  there  is  no  tax  in  such  a  case.  If  the  gift  had  been  to  an  in- 
dividual, Government  would  have  lost,  by  allowing  the  property 
to  pass  under  that  form,  the  natural  tax  upon  a  will. 

The  following  letter,  written  after  having  been  for  ten  years 
thrown  upon  his  own  thoughts,  and  upon  the  natural  bent  of 
his  own  mind  and  character,  wears  a  serious  air — a  full  con- 
sciousness of  taking  a  step.  Of  course,  to  those  near  him,  the 
step  was  no  surprise  : — 

To  his  Brother,  John  Mozley. 

Oxford,  January  1,  1855. 

The  beginning  of  a  new  C.  R.  quarter  is  a  proper  time  for 
my  communicating  to  you  a  resolution  which  I  have  for  some 
time  come  to  with  regard  to  the  Christian  Remembrancer. 

I  find  that  after  four  years  of  reading,  interrupted  indeed, 
but  still  carried  on  with  some  degree  of  system  and  consider- 
able thought,  I  have  arrived  at  a  change  of  opinion,  more  or  less 
modified,  on  some  points  of  High  Church  theology ;  but  to  a 
very  decided  one  with  respect  to  a  particular  doctrine  which 
has  been  the  theme  of  great  dispute,  and  on  which  the  party  in 
the  Church  which  the  C.  R.  professes  to  reflect  has  taken  very 
strongly  one  side  :  I  mean  the  doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regenera- 
tion. I  now  entertain  no  doubt  of  the  substantial  justice  of  the 
Gorham  decision  on  this  point. 

I  have  too  been  engaged,  as  you  may  know,  on  a  book  which 
is  now  arriving  at  something  like  completion ;  and  part  of  which 
will  express  my  views  on  this  question,  and  enter  into  the 
whole  argument  connected  with  it. 

I  do  not  think  it  right  under  such  circumstances  to  have 
anything  more  to  do  with  the  editing  of  the  G.  R.  What  I 
have  had  indeed  has  been  of  an  imperfect  irregular  kind,  and 
more  belonging  to  the  practice  of  an  amicus  curice.  Yet  it  has 
been  enough  to  make  me  connected  with  the  Eeview,  in  the 
minds  of  that  portion  of  the  High  Church  party,  and  others  to 
whom  my  name  happens  to  be  known ;  and  I  do  not  feel  that 
in  consistency  I  can  continue  it  any  longer. 


228 


Letters  of  the 


I  have  written  to  Scott,  some  three  weeks  ago,  to  this  effect. 
Will  you,  when  you  next  write  to  Clay,  tell  him  the  same,  and 
that  he  need  not  consequently  send  me  any  more  proofs  of  the 
Christian  Remembrancer. 

This  intimation  of  mine  will  not  perhaps  much  surprise  you, 
as  you  may  have  seen  that  I  have  been  for  some  time  under- 
going a  course  of  modification,  and  I  think  I  have  told  you  of 
the  particular  point  on  which  I  find  myself  coming  into  colli- 
sion with  the  doctrines  of  the  party. 

Practically  I  have  no  wish  to  separate  myself  from  those 
with  whom  I  have  hitherto  acted.  The  Tractarian  body  is  now 
the  one  with  which,  on  the  whole,  I  most  sympathise.  Nor 
does  a  modification  on  one  or  other  point,  or  even  a  decided 
difference,  make  much  substantial  alteration  in  my  feeling 
towards  it.  But  when  a  particular  doctrine  has  been  made  the 
watchword,  and  people  have  been  considered  to  take  their  sides, 
according  as  they  thought  one  way  or  another  upon  it,  a  dis- 
agreement with  the  party  with  which  one  has  hitherto  acted 
upon  it  cannot  be  ignored  by  one's-self.  It  affects  one's  official 
relations  to  the  party,  though  one's  present  feelings  may  remain 
much  as  they  were.  It  is  now  ten  years  since  I  commenced 
my  connection  with  C.  R.  I  might  make  my  reflections  on  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  it.  It  has  made  me  write  to  a 
certain  extent.  I  do  not  anticipate,  now  that  the  connection  is 
over,  that  I  shall  do  anything  better  with  myself.  Nor  is  my 
own  future  much  brighter  than  that  I  have  been  conjecturing 
for  the  C.  R.  One  must  act,  however,  upon  certain  acknow- 
ledged maxims,  and  take  what  steps  are  imposed  upon  one  by 
circumstances,  or  the  course  of  one's  own  mind. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sistek. 

February  4,  1855. 
There  is  nothing  to  talk  of  but  the  weather,  which  is  more 
disagreeable  than  can  be  expressed,  Oxford  being  peculiarly 
susceptible  to  all  the  damp  of  a  foggy,  misty  thaw.  At  St. 
Giles's  they  have  all  had  colds,  Miss  Amelia  Ogle  adding  to 
her's  a  stiff  neck,  which  obstructs  her  movements  in  that 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


229 


quarter  effectually,  and  impairs  their  natural  grace ;  for  which  it 
substitutes  however  (I  am  speaking  of  stiff  necks  generally)  an 
unusual  solemnity  of  manner ;  for  persons  having  to  turn  right 
round  when  they  speak  to  any  one,  the  appearance  gives  to  any 
communication  that  of  a  formal  and  dogmatic  appeal.  .  .  . 

I  have  informed  Charles  Marriott  of  my  altered  relations  to 
the  G.  R.,  and  the  reason ;  to  which  he  says,  "  For  my  part  I 
object  more  strongly  to  the  tribunal  than  to  the  decision  " — that 
is,  the  Gorham  decision — though  he  says  he  still  docs  object  to 
it.  If  people,  however,  cannot  use  stronger  language  than  this, 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  ground  for  any  strong  separation  of 
parties  in  the  Church  is  rather  gone. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  Rev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Oxford,  February  11,  1855. 

I  have  offered  my  book  to  Murray,  who  has  accepted  it.  I 
find  I  shall  have  to  split  my  subject,  and  devote  one  volume  to 
Predestination  and  the  questions  connected  with  it,  and  another 
to  the  application  of  the  subject  to  the  doctrine  of  Baptism.  I 
shall  hope  to  get  out  the  first  before  the  Long,  and  the  last  by 
the  end  of  the  year.  They  will  be  separate  books.  There  is 
one  advantage  in  this  division,  that  neither  book  will  be  por- 
tentous in  size.  The  disadvantage  is  that  there  is  not  enough 
interest  concentrated  in  each,  Predestination  of  itself  being  a 
dry,  crabbed  subject,  unconnected  with  any  exciting  feelings  of 
the  day.  As  I  do  not  know,  however,  of  any  book  which  has 
formally  gone  into  the  subject  in  a  fair  spirit,  there  is  room,  I 
think,  for  such  a  treatise.  .  .  . 

I  have  communicated  to  Rogers  and  Marriott  my  withdrawal 
from  the  Christian  Remembrancer,  for  which  the  reason  is  simply 
this,  that  I  find,  after  reading  and  reflection,  that  I  accept 
the  Gorham  decision,  and  that  therefore,  as  the  Tractarian 
party  has  so  strongly  committed  itself  against  that  judgment, 
both  generally  and  specially  by  the  protest  of  Pusey  and  its 
other  leaders,  I  can  no  longer  retain  an  official  or  semi-official 
connection  with  it,  though  one's  private  feelings  towards  indi- 
viduals and  the  body  may  be  much  the  same  as  before.  .  .  . 


230 


Letters  of  the 


We  are  congratulating  ourselves  on  Gladstone's  continuing  in 
office.  All  the  world  is  rejoicing  over  Lord  John  Eussell.  In- 
dependent of  a  triumph  over  an  enemy,  it  is  rather  comforting 
to  see  what  great  mistakes  sagacious  and  experienced  men  may 
make. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

March  22,  1855. 
Things  are  more  and  more  tending  to  Liberalism  here.  It  is 
a  progress  which  nobody  can  stop.  The  Council  is  obliged, 
though  not  itself  Liberal,  to  join.  The  scientific  Professorships 
are  most  of  them  now  only  to  have  a  mild  test  of  non-opposi- 
tion to  the  Church — no  subscription. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  12,  1855. 

The  only  piece  of  news  that  there  is  for  the  last  week  is 
rather  melancholy — the  death  of  poor  Craufurd,  elder  brother 
of  the  Ogles'  brother-in-law.  From  the  first  moment  they  heard 
of  his  going  to  the  Crimea,  the  Ogles  in  fact  gave  him  up.  He 
was  not  the  least  in  a  fit  state  of  health  to  go,  with  a  diseased 
liver,  great  propensity  to  rheumatism,  and  such  general  delicacy 
that  he  was  always  ill  in  England.  However,  his  regiment  being- 
ordered  out,  he  could  not  stay  behind,  or  sell  out.  The  first  day 
he  landed  in  the  Crimea  he  had  to  sleep  in  the  open  air.  But 
this  passed  off  at  the  time  better  than  he  expected.  However, 
a  bilious  fever  shortly  commenced,  he  was  sent  to  Scutari,  and 
there  died.  Such  is  the  end  of  this  heir  of  an  old  family  and 
good  estate,  so  little  good  have  his  social  advantages  been  to 
him.  He  was  at  the  marriage  of  his  brother,  and  was  much 
liked — handsome  and  gentlemanly. 

Elizabeth  is  to  be  at  the  Ogles'  to-day,  and  I  go  to  dine 
there.1 — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

1  My  sister  Elizabeth  was  at  this  time  living  with  my  brother  Tom  in 
London,  and  her  letters  contain  many  very  interesting  reports  on  the  subject 
of  the  war  ;  on  the  mismanagement  of  which  my  brother's  London  friends 
were  so  outspoken.  She  writes  of  what  she  hears,  and  testifies  to  the  honesty 
of  tone,  to  the  absorbing  feeling  that  prevailed  amongst  all  with  whom  my 
brother  was  associated,  and  the  intensity  in  his  own  case.  Answering  the 
attacks  on  The  Times  for  its  tone,  she  writes  : — "The  line  of  The  Times  may 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


To  Rev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Oxford,  May  17,  1855. 
...  I  have  been  dragging  on  through  my  wpus  since  I  last 
wrote,  and  now  it  is,  I  am  glad  to  say,  very  near  a  conclusion. 
The  book,  I  confess,  is  not  what  would  be  popularly  called  in- 
teresting, but  if  it  establishes  a  point  I  shall  be  quite  satisfied. 
My  sisters  Elizabeth  and  Fanny  have  been  severally  visiting  the 
Ogles  lately.  The  latter  is  here  now,  and  I  am  giving  a  musical 
entertainment  to  amuse  her.  She  has  been  for  the  last  year 
nearly  in  constant  attendance  upon  my  mother  during  her  ill- 
ness ;  and  she  wants,  in  consequence,  setting  up  again ;  and  a 
little  gaiety  does  her  good.  .  .  .  Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

To  J.  B.  M.'s  announcement  of  the  approaching  conclusion 
of  his  labours,  he  received  the  following  reply : — 

Eev.  E.  W.  Church  to  J.  B.  M. 

May,  1855. 

My  dear  Mozley, — I  congratulate  you  on  the  conclusion  of 
your  book.  I  have  followed  it,  with  great  interest,  sheet  by 
.sheet.  It  seems  to  me  to  have  brought  out  very  clearly  the 
fact  of  the  double  and  parallel  lines  of  ideas,  and  to  have  con- 
fronted them  with  great  distinctness  and  power.  The  subject 
is  one  which,  I  suppose,  is  not  likely  to  tempt  lazy  readers. 
But  you  have  not  written  for  them.  It  makes  one  feel  how 
une  goes  on,  taking  things  for  granted,  both  as  principles  and 
explanations,  and  as  facts.  I  am  very  glad  you  worked  the 
point  well,  about  our  ignorance.    I  never  should  be  a  meta- 

be  mistaken  ;  it  is  a  question  of  judgment  how  far  it  is  wise  to  act  on  the 
accumulation  of  complaints  that  pour  in  upon  them,  but  that  they  do  come, 
and  from  quarters  that  must  know,  there  is  no  doubt.  Tom  is  quite  sick 
with  the  accounts  sometimes.  People  have  such  mysterious  ideas  of  motives 
that  influence  The  Times,  whereas  they  often  seem  the  simplest  in  the  world  ; 
...  I  really  think  in  this  case  a  strong  feeling  that  it  must  be  done,  and 
that  a  reform  in  the  army  is  necessary.  People  feel  so  differently.  Mr. 
Fraser  [now  Bishop  of  Manchester]  wrote  to  Tom  enthusiastically  on  their 
courage  in  laying  the  blame  where  every  one  felt  it  must  be  due,  but  dared 
not  say."  Each  letter  has  passages  in  the  same  strain,  on  the  same  engross- 
ing theme,  sometimes  reporting  bitterer  language,  which,  after  all,  subsequent 
history  justifies. 


232 


Letters  of  the 


physician;  but  the  way  in  which  assumptions  excite  no  question, 
and  people  go  on  spinning  arguments  as  if  the  whole  of  the 
invisible  world  was  as  easy  to  be  understood  as  the  theory  of  the 
steam-engine,  has  long  been  one  of  my  standing  wonders.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  that  you  have  brought  out  so  strongly  the  two- 
sided  character  of  all  our  means  of  knowing,  and  the  fact,  that 
what  we  know  in  religious  matters  is  but  the  tendency  to 
know.  The  idea  of  perfect  and  absolute  knowledge,  which  is 
involved  in  so  much  of  what  is  said  and  taught  on  all  sides, 
becomes  daily  more  and  more  unendurable  to  me. — Ever 
yours  affectionately,  E.  W.  C. 

To  his  Sister. 

Oxford,  Jun6  5,  1855. 
What  with  Fanny  being  the  correspondent  while  she  was 
here,  and  my  being  in  London,  it  seems  quite  long  since  I  wrote 
to  Derby.  I  had  an  agreeable  week  in  London.  The  dinner 
at  the  Literary  Fund  passed  off,  owing  to  the  Bishop  of  Oxford's 
spirited  chairmanship,  well  enough.  He  certainly  does  every- 
thing with  great  go.  Whately  made  an  egotistical  speech  in 
celebration  of  his  own  liberality  and  judgment  in  his  mode  of 
patronising  poor  authors.  Sir  A.  Alison  was  washy  and  flat, 
something  like  his  book  style.  Neate  made  an  elaborate  speech, 
with  a  good  deal  of  choice  phraseology  in  it,  which  he  had 
evidently  prepared  with  care.  It  was  all  summed  up  in  The 
Times  as — "  The  Eev.  Mr.  Neate  proposed  Sir  A.  Alison's  health 
in  a  neat  speech."  .  .  . — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Malvern,  August  27,  1855. 
I  thought  you  would  like  to  hear  about  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles 
Dyson.  It  was  seventeen  years  since  I  had  seen  either  of 
them — not  since  that  dinner-party  at  Tidworth,  to  which  we 
went  from  Cholderton.  Mr.  C.  Dyson  is  looking  exactly  the 
same  that  he  always  did,  the  alteration  being  that  his  hair  has 
grown  quite  white.  The  contrast  between  the  two  brothers  is 
as  strong  as  ever.  We  had  a  very  pleasant  talk  over  various 
subjects,  Oxford  principally,  and  the  recent  changes  in  it,  the 
war,  Gladstone,  etc.     It  is  remarkable  how  an  elegant  and 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  233 


accomplished  mind,  as  Mr.  C.  Dyson's  is,  overcomes  the  dis- 
advantage of  so  plain  a  face.  He  is  a  very  neat  talker,  and 
has  all  the  courtesy  and  smoothness  of  the  old  school.  It  is 
pleasant  to  see  two  brothers  sticking  so  close  together  through 
life.  They  differed  about  Gladstone,  Mr.  F.  Dyson  being  scan- 
dalised by  his  course  in  the  Jew  Bill ;  but  Mr.  C.  Dyson  seeming 
inclined  to  go  along  a  good  way  with  him  even  in  his  war 
views.  ...  It  was  a  mere  domestic  meeting. 

I  never  mentioned  my  evening  with  the  M.s,  where  I  met 
L.  and  his  wife.  We  had  a  regular  political  and  House  of 
Commons  talk;  all  sorts  of  gossip,  such  as  floats  about  the  lobby. 
M.  describes  Disraeli  as  popular  with  the  younger  members  of 
his  party  in  the  House — very  social  and  companionable,  not 
stiff.  The  position  of  the  Peelites  is  considered  wretched  and 
irremediable,  and  the  Opposition  glory  over  it. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

Towards  the  end  of  1855,  J.  B.  M.  was  elected  member  of  the 
newly  constituted  Council. 

To  his  Sister. 

October  2G,  1855. 
Thank  you  for  congratulations  on  my  new  honours.  There 
are,  however,  various  reasons  which  must  prevent  my  feeling 
altogether  like  the  Head  of  a  House.  One  is  rather  the  fungus 
growth  of  a  democratic  movement,  and  probably  the  old  Heads 
look  upon  me  as  a  squire  would  look  upon  a  respectable 
tradesman  from  the  neighbouring  town  who  had  settled  himself 
in  his  village.  I  can  tell  you  nothing  of  my  duties  or  experi- 
ence of  office  yet,  having  had  none.  At  the  time  when  the 
news  of  my  promotion  reached  me,  I  was  just  going  to  dinner 
in  Hall,  and  so  could  not  attend  the  first  meeting  pro  forma 
of  the  Board,  which  was  immediately  after  the  election.  The 
whole  election  was  very  quiet,  no  disclosing  of  the  poll  as  it 
went  on,  and  so  no  room  for  electioneering  changes  or  combina- 
tions. .  .  .  Cholmeley,  the  Proctor,  described  the  first  meeting 
of  the  Board  at  five  o'clock,  by  candle-light  in  a  dark  room, 
as  more  like  a  cave  of  brigands  than  a  council-room. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


234 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Sister. 

February  1,  1856. 

I  am  preparing  a  book,  not  a  large  one,  for  the  press — a  wind- 
up  of  my  subject ;  after  which  my  theological  labours  will  rest 
— at  any  rate,  probably,  for  some  time  to  come.  The  title  of  it 
will  be  The  Primitive  Doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regeneration. 
.  .  .  It  will  be  an  easy  book,  and  only  the  development  of 
one  very  simple  position. 

Shoreham  will  probably  be  settled  in  a  few  weeks,  by  which 
time  it  will  have  come  down  to  me.  The  probability  is  that 
it  will.  I  have  hardly  yet  begun  to  realise  the  change  it 
will  bring  upon  me,  and  hope  I  shall  not  be  seized  with 
cpialins  and  nervous  fears  about  leaving  a  place  I  have  lived 
in  so  long.  The  principal  consideration  is,  after  all,  that, 
whether  one  goes  or  stays,  change  is  necessary ;  and  one  can- 
not be  the  same  in  the  future  that  one  has  been  in  the  past. 
So  that  any  sudden  change  of  this  kind  is  less  really  a  change 
than  it  appears  to  be. 

I  am  reading  Macaulay.  It  is  a  new  style  of  history,  and 
open  to  criticism  on  that  ground.  But  it  is  very  wonderful  the 
way  in  which  he  weaves  all  his  innumerable  details  into  the 
fabric,  and  brings  in  everything  in  its  right  place.  I  think  he 
puffs  and  blows  too  indiscriminately  about  all  events  great  and 
small,  and  that  this  destroys  his  perception  often  of  the  relative 
importance  of  events.  Thus  he  compares  the  battle  of  Killi- 
crankie  in  Scotland  with  that  of  Newton-Butler  in  Ireland,  the 
latter  being  a  very  insignificant  event  compared  with  the  former. 
His  show-up  of  the  Non-jurors  is  severe.  On  the  whole,  I  find 
myself  ready  to  agree  with  him  in  the  main.  It  seems  to  me 
so  very  few  of  those  movements  which  are  attended  with  a 
certain  romance,  and  so  bias  one  in  their  favour  for  a  time,  will 
bear  examination.  There  is  often  some  gross  offence  against 
common  sense  in  them,  which  was  specially  the  case  in  the 
Non-juring  movement. 

Did  I  say  in  my  last  that  I  had  met  Elwyn,  the  editor  of  the 
Quarterly,  an  agreeable,  very  well  informed  man,  and  a  fluent 
talker. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


235 


To  a  friend  whom  he  was  advising  to  stand  for  the  Taylorian 
Professorship  : — 

March  28,  1856. 

With  respect  to  the  philological  element,  it  appears  to  be 
plain  from  the  wording  of  the  statute  that  philology  and  litera- 
ture are  placed  on  an  equal  footing.  Now,  they  will  never  get 
Professors  to  represent  them  both — thafris,  adequately.  Indeed 
there  is  a  kind  of  opposition  in  the  two  tastes.  I  mean  that  the 
same  person  who  went  into  the  spirit  of  a  literature  would  not 
ordinarily  be  the  person  to  investigate  the  philological  basis  of 
language.  So  that  one  or  other  element  must  always  be  in 
some  degree  unrepresented. 

As  for  the  work,  Max  Mtiller  laughs  at  the  idea,  the  vacation 
seven  months  of  the  year  affording  such  ample  time.  I  think 
that  with  respect  to  health  even  a  good  deal  of  work  is  by  no 
means  detrimental  to  it,  so  long  as  it  is  work  congenial  to  a 
person's  mind.  What  wears  men  is  immoderate  work  and 
uninteresting  work.  There  appears  to  me  a  real  stimulus  in 
interesting  work  to  the  health.  I  mean  that  if  you  are  at  all 
reluctant  to  face  the  prospect  on  this  ground,  this  is  a  considera- 
tion that  ought  to  be  taken  into  account. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

On  Mr.  Wheeler  resigning  Shoreham,  then  consisting  of  both 
Old  and  New  Shoreham,  the  College  divided  the  living ;  and 
Old  Shoreham  coming  down  to  James  Mozley,  he  accepted  it, 
and,  in  July  1856,  married  Amelia,  third  daughter  of  Dr.  Ogle, 
Regius  Professor  of  Medicine,  and  twin  sister  of  Caroline, 
wife  of  Mr.  Johnson,  the  Observer;  settling  at  once  at  Old 
Shoreham,  to  which  he  and  his  wife  became  greatly  attached, 
and  where,  I  may  add,  they  were  much  beloved. 

To  Rev.  R.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  September  9,  1857. 
I  don't  think  any  communication  has  passed  between  us 
since  the  three  days  you  were  here.    Since  then  we  have  been 


236 


Letters  of  the 


at  Derby,  Manchester,  the  Lakes,  and  Oxford,  having  previously 
too  heard  the  Handel  at  the  Crystal  Palace.  We  returned 
five  weeks  ago,  and  shall  now  be  quiet  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
Manchester  was  as  agreeable  a  gallery  of  pictures  as  I  ever 
saw ;  pleasant  pictures  to  look  at,  good  light,  airy,  etc.  We 
were  there  four  days.  My  sister  Anne  came  with  ns.  We 
took  it  leisurely,  but  not  wasting  our  time.  I  was  astounded, 
however,  at  the  end  of  it  to  see,  on  looking  over  the  catalogue, 
what  a  small  proportion  of  the  pictures  I  had  even  looked  at — I 
think,  on  a  most  favourable  estimate,  not  more  than  an  eighth. 
Of  that  small  proportion,  how  many  I  shall  retain  is  another 
question.  It  was  said  the  Manchester  operatives  did  not  patronise 
the  place,  but  there  was  a  good  proportion  of  the  common 
sort  of  people  there. 

I  was  glad  to  get  a  sight  of  the  King  of  the  Belgians ;  a 
quiet,  shrewd-looking  man,  with  the  air  of  a  gentleman,  but 
not  the  least  of  a  king;  not  an  unpleasant  countenance, 
showing  considerateness,  and  the  better  characteristics  of  a 
man  of  the  world.  He  seems  to  have  managed  their  late 
rows  in  Belgium  with  great  adroitness. 

We  were  much  pleased  with  the  Lakes,  especially  Derwent- 
water.  Grasmere,  notwithstanding  its  high  Wordsworthian 
reputation,  is  a  little  too  small  and  basin-like.  A  great 
bulky  hotel  too  on  the  margin,  just  built,  obstructs  your  eye. 
Fox-Howe,  Arnold's  place  (where  Mrs.  A.  lives  now),  is  rather 
too  shut  up  for  my  taste.  Wordsworth's  house,  where  his 
widow  now  lives,  is  a  respectable,  rather  ancient,  sash-windowed 
one,  not  unlike  an  oldish  parsonage  of  the  more  secular  class ; 
not  pretending  to  the  Gothic  or  ecclesiastic  style.  His  old 
gardener  described  his  nocturnal  recitations  of  his  own  poetry, 
which  had  the  effect  of  several  persons  talking.  This  rush  of 
voices  would  pass  his  cottage  about  ten  o'clock  at  night,  as 
Wordsworth  was  returning  from  his  late  walk.  .  .  . 

What  a  horrid  exhibition  of  humanity  this  Indian  Mutiny 
is  !  It  will  of  course  end  in  a  tighter  English  rule  than  ever. 
Only  think  of  the  nonsense  of  having  allowed  these  natives  a 
free  press  !  How  far  will  people  not  carry  a  theory  ?  On  the 
whole,  with  all  its  horrors,  this  row  has  its  satisfactory  results, 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


237 


as  being  an  unconscious  justification  of  our  position  in  India, 
showing  that  we  are  necessary  for  the  people  there.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  September  of  this  year,  while  on  a  visit  at  Shorehara,  Dr. 
Ogle  was  taken  suddenly  ill,  and  died  there.  The  following- 
letter  relates  to  certain  claims  the  Eegius  Professorship  of 
Medicine  had  in  the  Ewelme  Hospital,  which,  in  the  interests 
of  the  family,  J.  B.  M.  undertook  to  represent  to  Lord  West- 
bury,  then  Attorney-General : — 

To  his  Sister  Elizabeth. 

November  20,  1857. 
I  had  an  interview  by  appointment  with  the  Attorney- 
General  about  the  Ewelme  affair.  I  had  had  some  notes  from 
him  before,  in  which  he  plainly  acknowledged  the  injustice  of 
the  former  offer  made,  but  referred  to  some  steps  which  had 
been  taken  under  the  former  Attorney- General,  which  there 
would  be  some  difficulty  in  undoing.  On  calling,  he  gave  me 
a  very  clear,  lucid  statement  of  the  whole  case,  never  stopping 
or  retracing  a  step  from  beginning  to  end,  just  as  if  he  were 
reading  it  out  of  a  book.  The  upshot  is,  it  will  have  to 
go  through  two  legal  references  to  Judge  in  Chambers,  the 
result  of  which  will  be,  in  all  human  probability,  that  we  shall 
get  the  whole  six  years'  salary,  amounting  to  £1500.  After 
his  statement,  he  began  to  talk  about  University  matters,  re- 
form, extension  ;  talked  about  his  own  academical  life,  having 
gone  up  at  fourteen  and  maintained  himself  wholly  at  seventeen 
and  a  half  old,  or  his  father  could  not  have  kept  him  there.  He 
remembered  Dr.  Ogle,  but  was  a  good  deal  his  senior  in  Uni- 
versity standing.  He  commented  on  the  free-and-easy  air  of 
the  present  race  of  under-graduates,  and  was  highly  disgusted  at 
the  pretensions  of  Balliol  in  setting  up  a  competitive  examina- 
tion for  admission,  the  result  of  which  had  been  disastrous  to 
one  of  his  own  sons.  There  was  a  formality  about  his  voice 
and  pronunciation,  but  none  in  the  substance  of  his  conversa- 


238 


Letters  of  the 


tion.  As  he  did  not  appear  to  have  suffered  much  from  certain 
remarks,  I  felt  quite  easy,  and  had  no  particular  qualms. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Eev.  R.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  January  1858. 
Arthur  has  been  here  a  few  days ;  he  is  quite  a  London 
clergyman  now  in  his  general  acquaintance  with  things  in 
the  London  Church-world.  He  goes  about  a  good  deal  to 
morning  meetings,  evening  meetings,  to  coffee  and  Scripture 
expositions  at  F.  Maurice's,  conferences  on  subjects  of  the  day 
at  the  rectory,  St.  James's,  etc.  etc.  He  describes  Liberalism 
as  considerably  advancing  in  some  clerical  quarters,  especially 
on  the  subject  of  the  Atonement,  which  is  a  complete 
bugbear  to  many.  .  .  .  Thought  seems  to  be  going  in  this 
direction  lately,  probably  stimulated  by  Jowett's  book  just 
now,  though  Maurice  has  long  taken  this  line.  Indeed,  S.  T. 
Coleridge  set  the  example.  .  .  .  Maurice,  as  I  said,  gives 
soirees,  which  are  generally  attended  by  some  twenty  of  the 
younger  clergy.  He  sits  at  a  table  with  a  Bible,  and  is  asked 
questions  upon  difficulties,  etc.  His  general  line  is  to  resolve 
everything  into  vagueness. 

To  his  Sister  Fanxy. 

Shoreham,  May  11, 1858. 
...  I  heard  Lord  Palmerston  at  the  Literary  Fund  dinner. 
I  had  never  heard  him  speak.  His  speaking  is  a  curious 
combination  of  perpetual  hesitation,  with  a  perfect  type  of  the 
whole  thing  he  is  going  to  say — the  construction  of  the  sen- 
tence and  everything — in  his  head.  With  his  continual  hesita- 
tion he  yet  never  goes  back  a  single  step  that  he  has  made, 
but  proceeds  regularly  on  till  the  whole  is  complete.  He  is 
very  choice  in  his  words,  and  almost  Addisonian — selecting 
the  simplest,  and  never  treating  you  to  that  fat,  pulpy  stuff 
which  some  speakers  do.  For  a  hesitating  speaker,  too,  he 
has  one  remarkable  characteristic,  which  is,  that  his  sen- 
tences are  very  long  and  his  constructions  rather  involved. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


239 


This  makes  his  slow  mastery  of  the  work  as  it  goes  along  the 
more  remarkable.  His  appearance  has  very  little  in  it ;  one 
might  take  him  for  anybody — a  respectable  grocer  or  alderman 
got  up  in  good  evening  dress.  He  has  nothing  intellectual  or 
aristocratic  about  him.  He  is  stouter  than  I  expected.  The 
Times  only  gave  his  heavy  speech  on  literature,  and  left  out 
his  lighter  speeches,  which  were  clever  and  characteristic.  .  .  . 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Rev.  R.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  November  1,  1858. 

.  .  .  We  go  to  Oxford  for  a  fortnight  the  middle  of  this 
month.  The  Observer  has  quite  made  up  his  mind  to  take  a 
regular  holiday  next  year  in  the  shape  of  a  Continental  tour,  of 
a  half-business  character,  just  sufficiently  so  to  be  amusing ; 
visits  to  observatories,  confabs  with  astronomers.  .  .  .  Gold- 
win  Smith's  duel  with  Froude  is  amusing.  I  suppose  Froude's 
answer  will  be  considered  by  his  own  friends  rather  good.  I 
thought  the  tone  of  his  [G.  S.'s]  article  too  supercilious,  consider- 
ing that  Froude,  whatever  theory  he  may  maintain  on  some 
subjects,  has  worked,  and  made  solid  additions  to  history,  which 
are  acknowledged.  A  man  who  writes  simply  as  a  critic,  and 
with  the  great  advantage  of  not  having  written  any  book  him- 
self, ought  not  to  use  his  vantage  ground  too  unsparingly,  or 
forget  that  if  he  came  to  write  a  history  himself,  he  too  might 
come  under  the  influence  of  some  new  theory  or  other. 

They  (at  Finchampstead)  see  something  of  Kingsley.  Tom 
says  there  is  effort  in  his  conversation  and  preaching,  though 
very  clever.  His  description  was  that  he  preached  as  if  he  was 
wrestling  with  an  evil  spirit.  Keble  has  been  preaching  at  St. 
Paul's.  The  sermon  seems  to  have  created  a  great  sensation, 
though  not  having  the  advantage  of  being  heard  by  more  than 
a  small  part  of  the  congregation.  .  .  . — Yours,        J.  B.  M. 

Oxford,  December  13,  1858. 
My  dear  Church, — We  have  been  making  a  longer  stay 
here  than  we  intended.    It  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  really 
seen  anything  of  Oxford  since  my  departure,  though  I  have 


240 


Letters  of  the 


been  up  several  times  for  different  reasons.  Things  look  very 
unchanged  except  in  Heads :  everything  very  quiet.  It  is 
curious  how  completely  controversy,  in  the  Tractarian  sense, 
has  left  Oxford — no  allusion  to  it  ever,  even  the  most  remote. 
What  controversy  there  is,  is  wholly  in  the  philosophical 
sphere.  Mansel's  Bampton  Lectures  are  criticised  a  good  deal. 
Wilson  describes  it  as  an  attempt  to  defend  orthodoxy  on 
Kantian  principles,  and  says  that  Chretien,  Goldwin  Smith, 
etc.,  do  not  like  his  ground.  I  have  just  looked  into  them. 
They  seem  to  me  to  put  forward  the  absolute  unintelligi- 
bility  of  the  Divine  nature — even  Divine  moral  character — too 
nakedly.  This  is  his  answer  to  the  moral  objection  to  the 
Atonement,  Abraham's  sacrifice,  etc. :  You  do  not  know  what 
Divine,  morals  are.  What  Wilson  says  is,  This  breaks  up  the 
whole  basis  of  revelation ;  and,  how  are  you  to  argue  with  the 
Hindoo  upon  his  immoral  gods  ? — he  will  tell  you,  Divine 
morals  are  different  from  human.  I  give  you  the  criticisms 
as  I  hear  them.  It  appears  to  me  to  be  one  of  those  cases  in 
which  a  man  has  been  too  confident  of  the  strength  of  some 
grand  general  dictum,  and  has  rested  everything  upon  it, 
expressed  in  the  boldest  and  most  unqualified  way.  .  .  . 

We  have  been  out  almost  every  day.  At  homes  are  the  order 
of  the  day.  The  Vice-Chancellor  gives  crowded  ones,  as  well  as 
a  succession  of  dinners.  It  is  rather  convenient  for  me  who 
want  to  see  everybody.  I  have  had  a  long  confab  with  Stanley 
— the  very  first  I  ever  had  with  him.  He  has  a  generous 
desire  to  hear  what  everybody  has  to  say,  and  made  me  de- 
velop myself  on  the  subject  of  Luther,  Justification  by  faith, 
a  great  crux  of  his  [Stanley's],  the  Law,  etc.  I  responded  as 
well  as  I  could.  He  is  getting  up  the  Arian  subject,  and  has 
a  sort  of  scheme  in  his  head  of  separating  the  Arianism  of  the 
early  times  from  that  of  later,  on  the  ground  of  its  (the  former) 
dealing  with  the  remote  and  mystical  part  of  the  subject — 
the  eternal  generation — while  the  latter  comes  into  direct  col- 
lision with  the  '  historical  Christ."  I  did  not  quite  under- 
stand his  distinction,  or  rather  I  did  and  did  not  think  it 
tenable,  as  I  told  him  ;  for  the  person  of  the  "  historical 
Christ "  and  of  the  mystical  one,  or  eternal  Son,  are  the  very 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


241 


same,  and  what  you  say  of  one  you  say  of  the  other.  I  thought 
the  idea  rather  Stanleyan.1  He  is  a  pleasant  person  to  talk 
to,  and  one  has  a  great  deal  in  common  with  him. 

How  are  you  now  ?  etc.  etc.  Tiememher  we  return  home 
next  Saturday.  — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B,  M. 

Shoreham,  February  28,  1859. 
My  dear  Church, — You  will  most  probably  have  heard 
the  sad  news  from  Oxford  before  this  reaches  you.  Johnson 
died  quite  suddenly  this  evening.  A  telegraphic  message 
reached  us  here  at  half-past  ten,  about  three  hours  after  the 
event. 

It  was  a  complaint  of  the  heart.  I  need  not  say  what  our 
feelings  are.  "We  start  by  the  earliest  train  in  the  morning  to 
Oxford.  I  was  given  to  understand  when  I  was  in  Oxford,  by 
one  of  the  doctors,  in  what  direction  the  complaint  was ;  but, 
though  I  felt  alarmed  at  the  time,  there  was  nothing  to  show 
immediate  danger ;  and  one  hears  of  those  complaints  going 
on  for  years. 

This  is  of  course  a  tremendous  blow  to  all  one's  Oxford 
reminiscences,  and  makes  everything  quite  different  to  look 
back  upon.  No  one  has  been  more  completely  identified  with 
all  that  one  has  lived  through  for  the  last  twenty  years,  than 
Johnson.  At  the  same  time,  I  almost  feel  a  sort  of  impossi- 
bility in  realising  these  very  sudden  losses. — Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  M. 

1  Referring  to  this  conversation  there  is  a  letter  from  Mr.  Stanley,  dated 
Christ  Church,  November  16,  1S00  :— 

"  My  dear  Mozlev, — I  am  on  the  point  of  publishing  some  lectures  on  the 
Nicene  Council,  in  which  I  should  much  like  to  make  use  of  what  struck  me 
as  a  very  powerful  defence  of  the  Athanasian  doctrine,  or  rather  attack  on 
the  Arian  doctrine,  that  you  made  to  me  when  last  I  saw  you  in  Oxford, 
viz.,  the  simplicity  of  the  Divine  and  human  as  opposed  to  the  unphilo- 
sophical  mythological  elements  which  would  have  been  introduced  into 
theology  by  the  notion  of  an  Exalted  /Eon,  Angel,  etc.  etc.  etc.:  as  advocated 
by  Arius. 

"  May  I  ask  whether  you  have  published  such  a  statement  in  a  form  in 
which  I  could  refer  to  it,  or  if  not,  whether  you  would  object  to  my  express- 
ing my  obligation  to  you  for  the  argument. — Yours  faithfully. 

"  A.  P.  Stanley." 


Q 


242 


Letters  of  the 


The  following  letter  gives  his  thoughts  on  the  death  of  a 
family  friend  of  his  whole  life  : — 

To  his  Sister. 

April  14,  1859. 

I  had  seen  Mr.  Wayland's  death  in  The  Times  before  your 
note  came.  Your  previous  account  of  him,  or  rather  his  own 
account  of  his  great  weakness, had  of  course  prepared  one  in  some 
degree  for  the  news.  It  has  been,  as  you  say,  so  very  gradual 
a  process,  that  the  end  came  with  as  little  change  or  surprise 
as  it  could  do.  Mr.  Wayland  was  always  to  me  a  most  pleas- 
ing person  to  think  of.  There  was  a  finish  about  him  which 
was  not  only  external,  but  was  really  the  expression  of  his 
inner  self  and  true  character.  The  perfect  resignation  with 
which  he  acquiesced  during  his  whole  life  in  the  situation  of  a 
mere  country  clergyman,  or  in  what  is  vulgarly  called  being 
"  buried,"  without  having  anything  even  in  his  thoughts  beyond 
it,  was  really  a  picture  in  its  way  in  these  pushing  days, — 
though  all  days,  I  suppose,  are  equally  pushing.  Mr.  Way- 
land's  was  the  nicest  form  of  a  really  humble  man  ;  there  was 
not  the  slightest  show  of  humility,  but  you  found  it  out 
practically  by  nothing  of  the  contrary  kind  ever  coming  out. 
I  have  always  felt  a  great  attachment  to  him,  and  should  like 
much  to  have  seen  a  great  deal  more  of  him  than  I  did,  but 
deafness  is  a  serious  obstruction.  Except  in  the  actual  family 
circle,  it  seems  to  make  all  communication  almost  more  or  less 
necessarily  artificial,  and  makes  conversation  quite  a  different 
thing.  It  was  a  particular  misfortune  in  Mr.  Wayland's  case, 
for  no  one  defect  could  have  deprived  so  very  social  a  person 
so  completely  of  his  principal  ordinary  pleasures  as  that  did. 
Yet  it  is  remarkable  how  perfectly  he  accommodated  himself 
immediately  to  it,  and  made  reading  serve  the  purpose  of 
recreation  instead. 

It  is  curious  to  compare  his  career  with  that  of  his  contem- 
porary [and  early  friend,]  our  Bishop.  I  consider  our  Bishop  a 
good  specimen  of  the  class  that  "  gets  on ; "  he  has  always 
taken  things  quietly  and  never  pushed.  And  yet,  if  you  com- 
pare the  two  lives.  I  very  much  doubt  whether  Mr.  Wayland 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


243 


has  not,  after  all,  got  a  greater  quantity  of  natural  happiness 
out  of  life  than  the  latter.  Three-fourths  of  the  life  of  these 
dignitaries  is  passed  in  buckram,  interchanging  civilities  or 
attentions  which  do  not  bring  the  mind  into  play,  and  might 
be  done  by  automatons  properly  constructed.  There  is  a  sort 
of  pleasure  in  the  general  consciousness  that  you  are  a  great 
man,  but,  that  allowed,  the  rest  is  really  not  life  in  any  true 
sense.  Whereas  Mr.  Wayland  always  seemed  to  me  greatly 
to  enjoy  life  in  the  best  sense.  When  he  was  reading  a  good 
novel,  for  example,  he  was  really  living  while  his  successful 
friend  was  acting  some  formality  or  other.  Some  persons 
seem  naturally  to  develop  into  a  sort  of  personified  ceremonial 
— it  is  their  destiny. 

I  find  it  very  difficult  to  express  my  whole  idea  of  Mr. 
Wayland,  and  yet  I  feel  that  his  character  has  made  a  deep 
impression  on  me,  and  that,  even  when  quite  young,  I  in- 
voluntarily always  thought  a  great  deal  of  him.  One  reason,  I 
think,  is  that  he  never  spoiled  any  of  his  good  qualities  as 
so  many  good  people  do.  They  had  all  the  advantage  of  being 
correctly  represented,  not  pushed  too  far,  or  made  hobbies  or 
conceits  of.  For  example  A.  B.,  the  other  day,  made  the 
remark  that  he  never  could  like  X.,  and  he  could  not  find 
ont  why,  except  it  was  that  he  was  always  thrusting  his 
honesty  into  your  face ;  a  quality,  by  the  way,  which  I  do  not 
know  that  he  possesses  to  a  greater  extent  than  other  people. 
But  Mr.  Wayland's  good  taste — or  rather  real  naturalness  of 
character — kept  everything  in  its  place,  and  yet  there  was  a 
decided  danger  on  the  sentimental  side  if  he  had  gone  off  in 
that  direction.  As  it  was,  I  think  it  was  the  sentiment — not 
sentimentality — in  him  which  contributed  to  the  general  effect 
of  his  character  more  than  anything  else.  It  was  the  true 
thing  as  it  ought  to  be,  and  not  swelled  out.  There  was  a 
great  deal  of  real  philosophy  about  him,  a  true  estimate  of  life,  a 
way  of  taking  things  easily,  as  if  they  were  to  be  expected.  He 
had  the  good  points  of  a  man  of  the  world.  I  think  myself 
this  is  a  rare  character — at  least  I  do  not  know  many  of  it — 
what  is  called  the  man  of  the  world  "  in  a  good  sense."  It 
is  a  very  attractive  character  wherever  met  with.    Our  old 


244 


Letters  of  the 


President  had  a  good  deal  of  it.  It  inspires  a  sort  of  confid- 
ence. You  feel  that  your  toes  will  not  be  trodden  on  in  the 
course  of  the  next  hour.  You  know  at  any  rate  that  he  has 
not  any  divine  commission  to  make  himself  unpleasant.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  the  softening  effect  of  experience  in  Mr. 
Wayland,  and  there  was  a  repose  which  is  usually  considered 
to  be  the  accompaniment  of  rank  where  the  person  has  never 
had  to  make  efforts,  and  so  never  been  in  the  way  of  form- 
ing restless  or  fidgety  manners. 

On  the  whole,  I  look  upon  his  as  a  very  valuable  type  of 
character,  and  the  more  so  because  so  very  pleasing  a  type. 
I  like  to  have  such  an  image  before  me,  and  am  sure  that  as 
long  as  I  live  it  always  will  be  a  pleasure  to  me  to  think  of 
Mr.  "Wayland.  If  any  of  you  are  writing  to  Mrs.  Solly  [Mr. 
W.'s  eldest  living  daughter],  please  give  her  my  condolences 
and  sympathy. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Rev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  June  10,  1859. 
.  .  .  What  do  you  think  of  the  prospect  of  a  new  Ministry 
and  the  £5  borough  franchise  ?  Democratically  it  is  a  great 
step  downwards.  So  Sidney  Herbert  is  at  last  a  declared 
Liberal.  I  suspect  a  little  ambition  in  him.  He  seems  now  to 
stand  next  to  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell,  who 
must  before  very  long  move  off  the  scene ;  so  that,  on  the 
principle  on  which  the  Premiership  is  sometimes  disposed  of, 
bein"  given  to  a  sensible  man  of  tact,  under  whom  others  are 
willing  to  serve — as  in  Lord  Aberdeen's  case — he  may  be  the 
head  of  the  Government  not  long  hence.  It  is  odd  to  see  the 
old  thing  going  on — the  superficial  flexible  man  rising,  while 
Gladstone  is  apparently  going  down.  .  .  . 

July  4,  1859. 

My  dear  Church, — Cobden's  refusal  of  office  has  a  touch  of 
magnanimity  about  it.  I  suppose  he  won't  take  it  without  his 
friend  Bright,  and  considers  it  a  point  of  honour.  I  dare  say, 
too,  he  is  not  sorry  to  show  a  set  of  exclusives  who  look  down 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


245 


upon  his  class  as  purchaseable  with  certainty — if  only  they  can 
lower  their  fastidious  taste  to  swallow  them — that  he  can  do 
without  it.  From  what  I  heard  the  other  day  from  a  cousin  of 
his  in  Brighton,  he  appears  to  be  setting  up  as  a  quiet  Sussex 
country  gentleman,  buying  land  about  his  moderate  paternal 
inheritance,  which  he  bought  back  again,  and  building  a  new 
house  on  it. 

It  was  a  new  fact  to  me  to  hear  that  he  had  had  an  uncle  of 
his  own  name,  once  a  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.1  He  is  not  the  sort  of 
man  whom  one  would  suppose  had  connections  in  the  Church. 
I  suppose  Cobden's  refusal  does  not  augur  very  well  for  the 
present  Ministry's  permanence.  But  a  snatch  of  office  is  as 
much  as  any  one  expects  now-a-days. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Shoreham,  October  18, 1859. 

My  dear  Church, — I  am  glad  to  hear  you  enjoyed  your 
holiday  and  are  the  better  for  it.  We  have  had  our  house  full 
all  the  summer,  and  have  been  by  ourselves  now  for  more  than 
a  month.  ...  I  come  across  old  faces  occasionally — the  Bishop 
of  Oxford,  at  the  Sussex  Archaeological,  a  month  ago.  He 
seemed  much  altered  and  thinner.  Hook  presided — a  good 
speaker,  and  thoroughly  self-possessed. 

That  review  of  Jowett  in  The  Times — except  on  the  audacious 
principle,  which  often  tells — seems  rather  a  mistake  in  judgment; 
the  puff  overdone,  and  the  ground  not  judiciously  taken.  If 
the  letter  of  Scripture  is  a  veil,  and  Christianity  is  Jowett 
behind  the  veil,  one  does  not  feel  very  secure.  It  is  curious 
to  see  two  totally  opposite  schools  talking  of  the  difficulty  of 
interpreting  Scripture.  But  really  this  aboriginal  Christianity 
which  Jowett  and  his  reviewer  dig  up  beneath  no  end  of  strata, 
is  as  perfect  an  arcanum  disciplinm  as  ever  was  invented  by 
tradition.  Criticising  as  a  looker-on,  I  do  not,  I  must  say,  see 
much  skill  in  the  way  in  which  the  controversy  has  been  con- 

1  The  Dr.  Cobden  referred  to  was  born  in  16S4,  and  might  therefore  be 
Mr.  Cobden's  great-great-uncle.  He  became  chaplain  to  Bishop  Gibson,  a 
Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  Archdeacon  of  Middlesex,  and  Chaplain  in  Ordinary 
to  George  n.    He  published  a  volume  of  poems,  and  another  of  sermons. 


246 


Letters  of  the 


ducted  against  him.  Mansel's  seems  to  me  a  blunder,  though 
a  clever  blunder  ;  and  his,  I  suppose,  is  the  best.  The  answer 
on  the  Atonement  question  especially,  I  should  say,  had  been 
much  mismanaged.  When  Jowettism  recedes — as,  in  common 
with  other  fashions,  it  will  before  long — it  will  be  before  the 
grand  vis  inertice,  rather  than  controversy.  .  .  . 

I  met  old  Badeley  in  the  Temple  the  other  day,  and  went 
up  for  half-an-hour  to  his  rooms,  looking  exactly  the  same  as 
if  it  was  yesterday  I  was  in  them ;  and  he  too,  though  I 
thought  I  detected  a  little  melancholy  in  his  air.  I  think  he 
must  miss  his  old  cosy  society  and  the  traditions  of  his  youth. 
He  was  quite  Tory  in  his  political  talk.  .  .  .  Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  M. 

To  Eev.  R  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  November  2,  1859. 
If  you  read  novels  it  is  quite  worth  your  while  reading  Guy 
Livingstone,  as  a  disclosure  of  a  sort  of  life  and  standard  rather 
different  from  our  own  particular  one.  It  is  striking,  and  has 
great  beauties  here  and  there ;  but  the  main  feature  to  me  was 
the  coarse,  insolent  pharisaism  of  the  fashionable,  hard-living 
set,  who  ride  at  everything,  gamble,  drink,  etc.  etc.  I  should 
have  thought  this  antiquated.  They  are  such  tremendous 
swells  of  virtue  on  their  own  standard — sort  of  gods  ;  and  the 
author  sympathising  with  it  all  and  thinking  it  the  thing  :  such 
rampant  braggadocios,  such  insolent  contempt  of  everybody 
whose  happiness  does  not  arise  from  a  self-glorifying,  bodily 
courage,  rejoicing  in  the  most  vicious  brutes,  horses  or  men,  as 
its  material.  It  is  the  grandest  crow  over  everybody,  and  I  can 
oidy  compare  it — in  dissimili  materia — very  dissimilar  certainly 
— to  the  crowing  of  W.  G.  W.  and  Company,  some  dozen  years 
ago,  to  the  Pharisees  and  other  respectable  people. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Shoreham,  April  2,  1860. 
I  am  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  Derby,  where  I  have  been 
spending  two  days,  while  my  wife  was  in  Oxford.    I  left  them 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


247 


all  in  spirits  at  Harry's  having  got  the  Newcastle.  The 
victor  brought  down  the  news  himself,  which  he  bore  with 
proper  Eton  magnanimity.  John,  the  second  brother,  was  very 
near  getting  it  last  year,  but  just  failed,  and  was  medallist.  I 
took  Frank  Faber  on  my  way  to  Derby,  whom  I  had  not  seen 
for  nine  years.  I  found  him  very  little  altered,  and  abounding 
in  the  same  interests  and  good  stories  ;  also  particularly  proud 
of  a  triumph  he  had  just  gained  over  all  the  established  coaches 
in  Oxford.  A  man  who  had  to  be  got  through  the  law  school 
had  baffled  every  resident  artist.  At  length,  as  a  last  resource, 
A.  F.,  of  New  College,  sent  him  to  his  uncle,  who,  summon- 
ing all  his  old  vigour  in  that  line,  got  up  Blackstone  for  the 
express  occasion,  and  hammered  it  into  the  man  so  success- 
fully that  he  passed  through  with  Mat  to  the  astonishment  of 
everybody. 

I  have  begun  to  read  the  new  volume  of  essays  from  the 
Advanced  School.  I  think  it  is  a  mistake  their  having  con- 
nected themselves  with  Baden  Powell.  B.  P.  is  certainly  a 
cool  fellow,  the  impossibility  of  miracles  being  his  avowed  con- 
clusion now,  put  forward  as  a  mathematical  truth,  which 
whoever  does  not  see  by  intuition  is  simply  defective  in  the 
rational  faculty,  and  is  unable  to  pass  the  Ass's  Bridge  of  philo- 
sophy. He  does  not  add  to  the  ethical  pretensions  of  the 
school.  ...  I  am  a  little  disappointed  with  the  intellectual 
merits  of  the  compositions,  as  far  as  one  is  judge  from  turning 
over  pages  here  and  there,  which  perhaps  one  is  not. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Same. 

June  6,  1860. 

We  had  a  very  pleasant  Oxford  visit.  It  is  a  nice  thing  to 
see  your  acquaintances  from  time  to  time,  especially  when  so 
conveniently  collected  as  at  Oxford,  without  too  long  intervals. 
It  keeps  up  the  continuity  like  a  dotted  line.  Yet  it  is  always 
rather  hard  work  spending  a  week  in  a  place  after  an  interval 
of  absence.  I  had  rather  a  long  talk  with  B.,  who  was  rather 
strong  as  to  the  Jowett  element  in  Oxford,  and  the  narrow  line 


248 


Letters  of  the 


between  it  and  positive  infidelity.  He  was  for  renovating  the 
Paley  argument,  which  he  thought  had  been  much  depreciated. 
Altogether  things  look  as  if  there  was  to  be  an  Evidence  battle 
over  again.  .  .  .  One  feels  after  a  stay  in  Oxford  a  twinge 
sometimes  at  a  sort  of  involuntary  hypocrisy  one  has  carried 
on ;  first  seeing  one  person  and  then  another — orthodox  and 
heresiarchs — and  agreeing  with  everybody  as  much  as  one  can. 
.  .  .  Gold  win  Smith  lectured  on  Eaces,  starting  with  a  hit  at 
Matthew  Arnold's  view  in  a  recent  lecture.  Nothing  very 
original,  but  capital  writing. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

PiEV.  R  W.  Church  to  J.  B.  M. 

Whatley  Bectory,  February  22,  1861. 
Dear  Mozley, —  ...  So  the  row  is  begun  about  Essays  and 
Reviews.  Do  you  know  who  wrote  in  the  Quarterly  ?  Such 
things  generally  come  out,  but  all  I  have  heard  is  that  S.  0. 
disclaims  it.  I  have  not  seen  it,  but  I  hear  it  galls.  All  these 
addresses,  and  circulation  of  extracts,  and  condemnations  are 
of  course  inevitable.  But  it  is  uncomfortable  work.  One 
remembers  how  these  things  used  to  be  done  in  former  days. 
There  is  of  course  a  certain  coarse  justice  in  such  proceedings. 
There  is  a  spirit  and  tendency  about  the  book,  as  there  was  in 
Hampden  aud  the  Oxford  movement,  which  is  undeniable, 
whatever  may  be  said  about  garbled  extracts.  And  I  suppose 
that  it  is  quite  possible  and  likely  that  a  heavy  blow  may  be 
dealt  to  the  opinions — a  much  heavier  than  the  writers  dreamt 
of  provoking.  But  unless  there  is  also  a  strong  argumentative 
answer  to  them,  it  is  such  mere  provisional  work.  People  will 
go  on  asking  these  same  questions,  and  raising  these  same 
difficulties,  and  there  is  so  much  unfairness  mixed  up  with  and 
encouraged  in  these  mere  condemnations  that  really  I  revolt 
from  it  all.  I  certainly  dislike  the  Essays  and  Reviews  very 
much,  for  raising  horrible  difficulties  which  they  seem  to  me 
to  do  nothing  to  relieve,  but  simply  slur  over,  as  B.  Powell 
does  about  miracles  and  science.  But  I  am  afraid  that  the  row 
will  prevent  for  the  present  any  quiet  and  hopeful  pursuing  of 
these  questions,  and  certainly  I  should  like  to  see  some  of  them 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


249 


more  fully  examined,  and  even  the  real  limits  of  the  danger 
precisely  drawn  ....  Ever  yours  affectionately,     R.  W.  C. 

To  Eev.  R.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  March  11,  1861. 

My  dear  Church, — I  feel  much  the  same  with  respect  to 
Essays  and  Reviews  that  you  do.  It  goes  against  the  grain  to 
join  an  assailing  mass. 

Baden  Powell  spoils  whatever  element  of  truth  there  may  he 
in  his  view  by  the  desperate  pell-mell  hurry  he  is  in,  giving 
himself  no  time  to  distinguish.  His  view  of  course  admits 
of  the  Scripture  miracles  being  true  as  facts,  though  not  as 
miracles — i.e.  mutations  of  law.  But  he  nowhere  expressly 
states  their  truth  as  facts.  It  is  all  jumble  and  confusion  when 
he  comes  to  this  point,  which  is  of  course  the  turning-point  of 
the  whole ;  "  a  region  of  faith,"  as  he  calls  it  (i.e.  not  of  sight, 
as  he  must  expect  to  be  interpreted) — not  of  real  fact. 

It  certainly  appears  to  me  that  belief  in  miracles  is  upon  an 
assumption;  I  mean  the  assumption  of  a  personal  Deity.  Butler 
makes  this  assumption,  which  is  strictly  one  of  faith.  But  to 
believe  in  a  miracle  upon  an  assumption  of  faith  is  not  counter 
to  believing  it  as  a  fact  of  actual  occurrence  ;  for  if  the  assump- 
tion is  true,  that  which  rests  upon  it  is  true,  and  true  in  its  own 
sphere — viz.,  as  a  fact.  B.  P.'s  tacit  argument  is  that  a  thing  is  not 
a  fact,  because  it  rests  upon  a  ground  of  faith  in  addition  to 
that  of  ordinary  testimony.  However,  all  this  is  very  puzzling. 
It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  our  divines  were  fully  conscious  of 
the  immense  assumption  they  were  making  when  they  assumed 
the  existence  of  a  God  in  these  senses  as  the  basis  of  the  defence 
of  miracles.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  assuming  everything ;  be- 
cause if  you  suppose  a  Deity  of  such  a  nature  as  to  interfere  in 
human  affairs,  what  difficulty  is  there  in  the  fact  of  such  an 
interposition  ?  No  man  of  sense  would  raise  a  question  about 
it,  if  the  testimony  was  good.  The  whole  difficulty  is  in  what 
the  Bible  assumes — a  Deity  of  a  particular  nature  and  character 
— and  not  in  its  facts.  For  why  on  earth  should  not  an  ass 
speak,  if  there  is  some  one  to  make  it  ?    But  how  do  we  get  at 


250 


Letters  of  the 


the  nature  of  such  a  Deity  ?  By  faith.  Yes,  but  natural  faith. 
I  suppose  upon  evidence.  What  is  the  evidence?  That  is 
the  difficulty.  Everybody  for  years  pas  has  been  giving  up 
evidence,  instead  of  applying  it ;  "  We  can  do  without  this  and 
that  and  the  other."  The  Paley  argument  of  design  is  given 
up;  miracles  of  course  assume  and  do  not  prove  it.  Then  what 
is  evidence?  It  appears  to  me  that  people  are  very  much  at 
sea  on  this  point.  The  Provost  can,  when  he  is  forced,  make  a 
tremendous  gulp  of  a  disagreeable  mouthful,  but  the  process  is 
terrible  to  look  at.  .  .  .  I  should  think  the  Principal  of  Jesus' 
view  of  miracles  in  their  metaphysical  aspect  would  rather 
puzzle  that  very  respectable  but  not  ultra  philosophical  body, 
Convocation. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — An  absolute  repose  here  must  apologise  for  an  argumen- 
tative letter,  which  is  a  very  poor  substitute  for  a  "  newsy  "  one. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  20,  1861. 
The  excitement  about  Essays  and  Reviews  still  keeps  up. 
The  best  way  of  treating  such  a  book  would  of  course  be  for 
everybody  to  hold  his  tongue ;  but  one  knows  this  is  practi- 
cally impossible,  because  people  have  the  irresistible  impulse 
to  testify.  And  if  some  testify,  others  must.  The  writers  of 
course  go  great  lengths,  but  I  think  even  they  would  shrink 
from  what  their  theology  would  practically  become  if  taken  up 
by  the  mass.  That  is  simple  infidelity,  and  indeed  atheism ; 
for  Baden  Powell's  essay,  popularly  interpreted,  could  be 
nothing  else.  A  few  subtle  intellects  may  maintain  really 
to  themselves  a  neo-Christian  ground,  retaining  something  of  the 
Scriptural  system,  but  a  congregation  of  such  spirits  is  an 
impossibility. 

To  his  Sister. 

May  23,  1861. 

So  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury  [Hamilton]  is  going  to  bell  the 
cat.  As  a  High  Church  Bishop  he  saves  his  party  from  an  incon- 
sistency ;  for  though  inconsistency  is  not  the  worst  of  sins,  it 
would  as  a  matter  of  fact  have  been  the  grossest  inconsistency 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


for  the  same  party  that  tried  to  turn  Gorham  out,  quietly  to 
let  these  men  stay  in.  Stanley,  if  he  is  the  writer  in  the 
Edinburgh,  deserves  the  knock  he  got  from  Jelf,  not  on  account 
of  the  mistake,  which  is  nothing;  but  because  he  had  taken 
absurd  advantage  of  a  mere  verbal  mistake  in  Jelf — that  is,  as 
he  thought  it  to  be  at  the  time.  It  is  a  piece  of  dishonesty  which 
everybody  seems  to  think  fair  now,  to  go  off  from  the  real 
merits  of  the  question  at  any  point,  to  discuss  some  trumpery 
verbal  inaccuracy  for  whole  pages,  where  your  opponent  has 
made  one,  in  order  to  produce  the  appearance  of  a  victory  on 
the  main  question,  when  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  main 
question  at  all.— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  August  4,  1861. 
.  .  .  What  a  melancholy  event  poor  Sidney  Herbert's  death  is  ! 
It  has  struck  the  whole  world  with  a  sort  of  gloom.  I  should 
think  it  was  too  late  to  think  of  anything  like  restoration  when 
he  took  the  move  to  the  Upper  House,  but  that  if  he  had  taken 
it  a  year  or  two  back,  and  given  himself  a  regular  holiday,  there 
might  have  been  a  chance.  I  suppose  in  such  cases  there  must 
have  been  premonitory  symptoms  going  on  for  some  time. 

To  the  Same. 

Shoreham,  March  31,  1862. 
.  .  .  We  paid  a  week's  visit  to  Tom  at  Finchampstead.  It 
was  the  first  we  had  paid.  We  were  much  taken  with  the 
house  and  whole  place.  I  saw  some  of  his  neighbours,  among 
others  Kingsley,  who  dined  there.  He  has  a  little  the  look, 
when  he  first  comes  into  a  room,  of  a  lion — i.e.  of  one  who 
knows  himself  to  be  a  lion.  But  I  thought  afterwards  the  im- 
pression might  be  due  to  the  natural  restlessness  of  his  eye  and 
manner — something  of  the  same  that  Keble  has.  He  is  a 
most  continuous  talker,  but  fresh  and  interesting,  and  without 
affectation ;  and  his  hesitation  of  speech  is  not  so  much  of  a 
drawback  as  you  might  expect.  He  gave  one  the  idea  of  a  man 
who  had  a  real  wish  to  be  manly  and  simple-minded,  and  made 
that  his  standard.    He  is  made,  of  course,  an  immense  deal  of. 


252 


Letters  of  the 


To  the  Same. 

Shoreham,  April  26,  1862. 
...  I  am  glad  to  hear  of  your  contemplated  tour.  As  you 
are  something  of  a  traveller  by  nature,  it  becomes  a  void  which 
requires  satisfying  from  time  to  time,  and  such  satisfactions  are 
good  things  for  the  health  and  everything  else.  Our  review 
was  a  fine  sight — at  least  200,000  people,  I  should  say,  on  the 
Downs.  I  had  the  opportunity  of  watchiug  two  notabilities, 
Lord  Clyde  and  Lord  Cardigan — the  latter  very  handsome, 
with  quite  a  beau-ideal  of  a  refined,  well-chiselled  face,  but  with 
a  quiet  yet  vicious  melancholy  stamped  upon  it.  I  was  struck 
with  his  absolute  imperturbability,  for  lie  sat  bolt  upright  on 
his  saddle  for  at  least  two  hours,  without  a  movement  of  any 
kind,  or  even  turning  his  head.  Whether  this  was  expression 
of  an  inward  scorn  for  the  whole  genus  volunteer,  I  cannot  say. 
Lord  Clyde  had  rather  a  Saracenic  sit  upon  his  horse,  bending 
forward  over  his  horse's  neck,  wriggling  about  in  eel-like  fashion, 
rather  as  Saracens  are  represented  in  pictures,  as  if  he  forgot  he 
was  upon  horseback,  feeling  the  animal  so  completely  a  part  of 
himself.  He  had  the  look  of  performing  all  the  processes  of 
mind  upon  horseback.  There  was  a  decision  in  his  own  move- 
ments, shooting  out  his  arms  in  giving  directions  like  a  sign- 
post ;  and  you  should  have  seen  him  gallop  up  and  cap  the 
Duchess  of  Wellington,  the  white  feather  performing  such  a 
magnificent  curve  in  the  air.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

In  the  autumn  of  1862,  J.  B.  M.  published  his  Review  of  the 
Baptismal  Controversy.  He  writes  to  his  sister  from  London : — 

Curzon  Street,  October  1862. 
Thank  you  for  the  attention  you  have  given  to  a  book  on 
so  very  professional  a  subject  as  mine.  As  you  say,  I  should 
not  have  expected  beforehand  that  I  should  have  chosen  such 
a  subject,  but  circumstances  dictated  it,  and  in  the  great  diffi- 
culty of  choosing  for  one's-self,  one  rather  too  willingly  perhaps 
acquiesces  in  the  choice  which  circumstances  make  for  one. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


253 


Of  course  no  controversial  book  ever  convinces  anybody  ;  what 
it  does  do,  if  its  argument  is  good,  is  to  enable  persons,  more  or 
fewer,  who  were  convinced  before  out  of  their  own  reflection, 
but  shrank  from  avowing  it,  because  they  had  not  definitely 
looked  into  the  facts  of  the  case,  to  avow  and  express  their 
previous  judgment. 

We  have  managed  to  see  and  hear  a  good  deal,  though  the 
Exhibition  is  such  a  perfect  infinity,  that  the  more  one  sees  the 
more  one  knows  one  has  not  seen.  So  that  I  do  not  profess  to 
be  proof  against  ignominious  exposures  of  omission. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

This  year  the  Eickards'  party  were  at  Brighton.  J.  B.  M. 
writes : — 

To  His  Sistek. 

Shoeeham,  November  21,  1862. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Eickards  took  me  to  call  on  a  Mr.  Hircher,  a  con- 
verted Jew,  who  is  reading  Colenso's  book,  and  full  of  the 
utter  puerility  of  it.  The  text  has  never  been  considered  by 
the  Jews  themselves  infallible  on  the  point  of  numbers,  errors 
having  crept  into  the  MSS.,  or  it  being  conceded  that  they  may 
have. 

Mr.  E.  entered  a  little  on  the  subject  of  my  book,  the  exis- 
tence of  which  he  knew,  though  not  the  contents.  I  told  him 
the  main  positions  of  it,  and  specially  the  distinction  between 
the  grace  of  Baptism  and  the  recipients  of  that  grace  (whether 
all  infants  are),  upon  which  the  argument  is  founded.  So  far 
from  objecting  he  rather  approved  of  it,  and  said  the  same  dis- 
tinction had  occurred  to  himself  at  the  Gorham  row,  only  not 
with  sufficient  definiteness. —  Yours  affectionately,    J.  B.  M. 

James  Mozley  being  part  proprietor  of  the  Christian  Remem- 
brancer, which  took  a  strong  line  against  his  book,  was  desirous  to 
dissociate  the  family  name  from  the  title-page  of  that  periodical, 
and  to  make  it  over  to  other  hands.  This  my  brother  John,  not 
sympathising  in  J.  B.  M.'s  modification  of  views,  was  unwilling 
to  agree  to.   As  recipient  of  both  views,  their  sister  has  to  make 


254 


Letters  of  the 


the  best  of  things.  "  As  you  observe,"  J.  B.  M.  writes,  "  the 
matter  is  not  of  very  much  importance." 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  December  2,  1862. 
I  should  describe  our  family  politics  as  moderate  High 
Church.  I  should  describe  myself  under  that  term.  I  have 
said  nothing  but  what  recognised  moderate  High  Church 
divines  have  said,  such  as  the  late  Bishop  Kaye,  who  was 
always  regarded  as  the  learned  Bishop  of  the  Bench  in  his  day, 
and  what  the  Bishop  of  Oxford  openly  says  in  his  charges, 
namely — that  our  formularies  were  meant  to  include  both 
parties. 

But  though  moderate  High  Church,  we  don't  go  along  with 
the  spirit  that  breathes  in  the  controversial  reviews  of  the 
High  Church  party,  still  less  should  we  be  disposed  to 
turn  a  clergyman  out  of  his  living  for  holding  what  is 
admitted  on  all  sides  to  have  been  openly  held  in  the  English 
Reformed  Church,  from  the  first  moment  of  its  existence  to 
the  present  moment.  The  Gorham  judgment  simply  sanc- 
tioned a  de  facto  state  of  things  which  had  existed  from  the 
first — there  being  too,  nowhere,  any  dogmatic  statement  the 
other  way  in  our  formularies.  The  High  Church  party 
practically  gives  up  the  case  when  it  accepts  as  its  leader  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  wdio  openly  proclaims  the  neutrality  of  our 
formularies.    However,  I  am  getting  theological. 

We  have  not  quite  made  up  our  minds  as  to  the  time  of  our 
Derby  visit.  We  think,  however,  somewhere  about  the  middle 
of  January. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  question  of  the  Articles  coming  up  in  1863,  J.  B.  M. 
Avrote  the  Letter  to  Professor  Stanley,  which  appears  in  the  latest 
published  volume  of  his  works.  We  find  allusions  to  it  in  the 
year's  letters. 

To  Rev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  May  12,  1863. 
I  am  sorry  the  Oxford  Liberals  have  taken  to  agression. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozlcy,  D.D. 


255 


For  Stanley's  attack  on  the  Articles  must  be  taken  as  such.  It 
is  very  well  to  claim  for  their  faith  to  be  tolerated,  but  this 
is  rather  like  an  attempt  to  make  you  give  up  yours.  It  is 
evident  it  has  been  forced  upon  Stanley  by  the  go-aheads  of 
Oxford,  and  that  he  does  not  like  his  task.  I  have  almost 
a  mind  to  say  something  about  it  myself,  but  one's  courage, 
like  Bob  Acre's,  oozes  through  one's  finger-ends. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Writing  to  his  brother  Tom,  to  whom  he  had  sent  a  copy : — 

June  11,  1863. 

I  am  glad  you  found  my  Letter  readable.  Anything  con- 
nected with  the  Articles  has  a  repulsiveness  to  the  general 
reader,  which  it  requires  a  strong  effort  to  surmount.  How- 
ever, you  seem  to  have  got  over  the  barrier  by  a  strong  exer- 
tion of  the  will.    I  do  not  think  much  of  E  's  criticism, 

which  would  require  us  to  read  all  the  Eeformers  through 
before  we  could  apply  it,  a  task  which  would,  I  think,  exceed 
the  most  Herculean  strength. 

Gladstone's  speech  was  very  clever  in  having  something  in 
it  to  please  everybody,  and  excite  hopes  in  all  directions,  and 
yet  with  the  orthodox  bent  pre-eminent. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

In  July  he  writes  from  Cornwall,  where  he,  his  wife,  and 
Mrs.  Johnson  were  taking  a  driving  tour  : — 

To  his  Sistee. 

Bude,  July  14,  1863. 
Our  weather  hitherto  has  been  capital,  and  we  have  almost 
an  excess  of  it  now  in  the  shape  of  a  mist,  which  prevents  us 
from  seeing  more  than  the  rough  outline  of  the  cliffs  of  the 
magnificent  bay  on  which  we  now  are.  On  the  north  is 
Moorwinstow  Cliff,  the  Baven's  Crag,  the  finest  in  Cornwall, 
450  feet  high ;  on  the  south  is  Tintagel,  the  birthplace  of 
King  Arthur.  This  country  is  devoted  to  British  romance, 
which,  as  it  was  a  favourite  subject  with  the  archaeologists 


256 


Letters  of  the 


of  the  reign  of  Henry  n.,  may  be  regarded  as  doubly  curious 
now.  I  must  confess  to  vague  notions  upon  this  early  period, 
but  I  bow  to  a  name  which  has  survived  so  many  ages  as  King- 
Arthur's,  and  can  believe  that  he  must  have  been  something  of 
a  man.  Earlier  associations  still  accompany  us  everywhere. 
The  Druids  were  great  upon  Dartmoor,  and  we  passed  by 
remains  of  circles  and  fragments  of  stand-up  stones.  "We  are 
resting  ourselves  now  for  a  few  clays,  and  content  ourselves 
with  lazy  walks  on  the  breakwater,  and  to  the  cliffs  close  by. 
We  have  the  advantage  of  a  very  nice  inn,  called  the  Falcon, 
in  honour  of  the  Aclands,  who  own  all  the  land  on  this  side 
of  the  river,  and  who  have  a  falcon  for  their  crest.  Sir  Thomas 
is  idolised  here.  He  has  a  cottage  where  he  comes  for  two  or 
three  months  every  year,  and  he  rules  the  place  after  the 
fashion  of  Haroun  Alraschid,  by  finding  out  from  everybody 
what  grievances  there  are,  and  who  have  tyrannised  in  his 
absence.  .  .  . 

We  like  this  place  (Bude)  better  than  Clovelly,  which  had 
some  perfect  pictures  of  views,  but  which  kept  you  quite  a 
prisoner  in  that  steep  corkscrew  street,  down  the  cliff,  out 
of  which  you  could  only  emerge  by  a  determined  effort, 
to  go  back  to  your  pictures  again,  which  were  cut  out  for 
you  in  the  woods  of  the  Hobby  and  the  Park,  and  were  in  fact 
in  frames  as  really  as  if  the  latter  had  been  gilt.  There  was 
something  amusing,  however,  in  the  evening  promenade  of 
Clovelly,  which  consisted  of  the  whole  population,  men, 
women,  and  boys,  sliding  and  sliddering  and  twisting  down 
the  corkscrew  of  tbe  street,  catching  hold  of  the  handles  and 
railings  if  a  false  step  was  made,  which  was  easy  enough, 
the  houses  on  each  side  being  within  arm's-length. 

To  T.  M.,  on  the  subject,  he  writes  on  his  return  to  Shore- 
ham  : — 

August  12,  1863. 
Unfortunately  times  of  enjoyment  leave  only  general  impres- 
sions behind  them,  and  do  not  add  much  to  the  stock  of  human 
knowledge.    I  have  several  images  in  my  mind's  eye  that  I 
had  not  before,  and  I  believe  that  constitutes  all  my  acquisi- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


257 


tion.  I  can  recommend  the  Cornish  coast  as  having  effects 
which  I  have  not  seen  elsewhere,  and  more  approaching  sub- 
limity than  other  cliff  scenery,  so  that  to  the  people  who  ask, 
Why  did  not  you  go  abroad  ?  I  am  prepared  with  an  answer, 
namely,  that  you  do  not  get  this  sort  of  scenery  abroad ;  so  that  if 
you  happen  to  be  particularly  fond  of  this  one  sort  you  must  go 
where  you  can  get  it.  I  do  not  know  of  any  near  parts  abroad 
where  you  can  get  it,  though  I  daresay  it  is  to  be  found. 

To  the  Same. 

Shoreham,  November  13,  1863. 
.  .  .  Trench's  appointment  is  a  very  good  one,  and  Stanley 
seems  made  for  the  Deanery  of  Westminster,  if  one  did  not 
know  that  the  appointment  was  only  an  intermediate  position 
for  him.  I  somehow  had  not  anticipated  another  important 
event  for  him.  It  is  one  of  those  instances  which  shows  how 
absurd  it  is  to  destine  a  man  in  one's  own  mind  to  be  celi- 
bate. I  had  never  connected  Stanley  with  the  idea  of  "  settling 
down  ;"  perfect  freedom  and  going  about  indefinitely  seemed  to 
belong  intrinsically  to  him.  I  will  not  associate  any  melan- 
choly thought  with  such  a  subject,  but  it  does  somehow  or 
other  remind  one  of  a  tendency  to  subsidence  which  seems  to 
exist  in  things,  and  which,  though  it  may  be  kept  off  by  viva- 
cious acclivities  for  a  time,  has  its  way  at  last.  Though  of 
course  he  will  be  as  intellectually  active  as  ever,  the  Liberals 
of  Oxford  will  find  the  loss  of  him. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

T.  M.  writes  to  J.  B.  M.,  in  return  for  his  report,  a  full 
account  of  his  own  Irish  tour.  The  answer  speaks  of  my 
brother  Charles,  who  was  a  traveller  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word,  one  of  his  northern  expeditions  to  Lapland,  etc.,  taking 
him  to  regions  in  Finland  where  no  Englishman  had  ever 
been  before.  Travelling,  indeed,  was  with  him  a  passion, 
rendering  him  perfectly  regardless  of  the  comforts  of  life  in 
his  journeyings — a  disregard  which  told  with  sad  force  as  the 
vigour  of  life  waned. 

R 


258 


Letters  of  the 


To  his  Brother  T.  M. 

October  26,  1863. 

Your  outline  of  your  Irish  tour  gives  so  vivid  and  clear  an 
idea  of  the  main  features,  that  I  thought  it  a  pity  it  should 
stop  with  me,  so  I  sent  it  to  Derby.  Charles  is  going  to  give 
it  a  diligent  perusal,  in  order  to  compare  his  own  impressions 
with  those  of  your  sketch.  He  has  been,  as  yo\i  may  remember, 
a  great  Irish  traveller,  though  of  late  years  he  has  struck  out 
bolder  paths.  .  .  .  Charles's  collection  of  Icelandic  plants  has 
arrived  in  London.  John  Ogle  took  them  to  the  meeting  of 
the  Association  at  Edinburgh,  and  brought  them  back  scien- 
tifically arranged  by  Dr.  Balfour,  with  the  request  that  any 
duplicates  might  be  bestowed  upon  the  rising  Icelandic 
collection  at  Edinburgh.  Charles  has  given  the  whole,  and 
so  goes  down  to  posterity  as  a  benefactor  of  science. 

I  had  observed  the  defects  of  the  Saturday  Review  article  on 
Whately  [written  on  the  death  of  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin] 
before  you  mentioned  them.  The  writer  did  not  know 
Whately's  history  evidently.  He  felt  Tractarianism  as  a  great 
sore  through  life,  and  was  always  hitting  it,  and  in  fact  could 
not  keep  his  temper  about  it.  The  writer  in  the  S.  H.  can't 
have  looked  at  his  later  writings,  otherwise  he  would  not  have 
passed  over  this  feature,  and  represented  him  as  treating  the 
whole  subject  with  contemptuous  silence. 

Bonamy  Price  was  enraptured  with  The  Times  article  on  the 
subject. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

October,  1863. 

I  had  a  few  days'  reading  in  the  British  Museum  week  before 
last.  A  most  pleasant  place,  and  equipped  with  every  artificial 
defence  against  sound  that  ingenuity  could  devise.  Everything 
padded — floor,  shelves,  desk,  everything  you  touch.  Leather  is 
the  universal  medium.  The  effect  is  very  successful.  As  I  do 
not  want  to  refer  to  any  very  rare  books,  it  will  not  answer  my 
purpose  to  read  there  much.  Did  I  live  in  London,  however, 
I  should  prefer  it  to  any  Club  library. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


259 


I  dined  one  day  with  Rogers.  I  was  rather  amused  with  one 
statement  he  sported,  namely,  "How  very  few  really  useful 
people  there  were."  I  asked  whether  he  did  not  consider  himself 
a  useful  man?  Upon  which  he  explained  that  shoemakers, 
tailors,  despatch -writers,  etc.,  were  useful  in  their  way,  but 
what  he  meant  by  useful  men  were  those  who  did  what  other 
people  did  not  do,  and  so  filled  a  gap. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  Rev.  R.  W.  Chtjech. 

Shoreham,  December  3,  1863. 
I  had  a  long  talk  with  William  Pusey  a  week  ago.  He 
comes  to  his  sister-in-law,  Miss  Freeman,  who  has  a  house  for 
sick  children  in  Montpelier  Street.  He  was  very  little  altered. 
I  asked  him  about  a  report  that  Newman  had  written  to  his 
brother  congratulating  him  on  the  comment  on  the  Minor 
Prophets,  and  saying  that  such  was  the  best  way  of  meeting 
the  scepticism  of  the  day.  He  said  it  was  true.  Curious, 
among  other  signs  of  J.  H.  N.'s  present  state  of  mind.  W.  P. 
was  very  full  of  the  Burial  Service  question,  having  himself 
had  a  case.  He  had  had  a  talk  with  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, who  saw  no  chance  of  an  alteration  of  the  service. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Same. 

December,  1863. 
So  Stanley's  friends  at  Oxford  are  getting  up  a  parting  com- 
pliment to  him.  It  looks  a  little  like  an  antidote  to  Words- 
worth's manifestation,  but  it  is  so  natural  a  thing  in  itself  that 
one  need  not  give  it  that  interpretation.  I  suppose  W.'s 
protest  will  have  the  effect  of  delaying  Stanley's  bishopric. 
One  remembers  the  Hampden  affair,  and,  though  those  days  are 
past,  people  are  never  quite  safe  from  revivals.  If  Gladstone 
ever  is  Premier  he  will  have  some  difficult  knots  of  this  kind 
to  solve. 

Writing  to  Mr.  Church  after  being  appointed  Bampton 
Lecturer  for  1865,  he  tells  him  : — 


260 


Letters  of  the 


April  13,  1864. 

...  I  have  chosen  a  subject  on  which  there  is  not  much  new 
to  say — Miracles.  At  least  what  there  is  new  is  not,  unfortu- 
nately, particularly  good  or  correct.  Stanley  writes  to  me  to  re- 
commend to  my  attention  Middle  Age  miracles.  The  suggestion 
is  most  amiable,  but  he  could  not  have  raised  a  more  frightful 
vision  to  appal  the  rash  adventurer  upon  a  somewhat  delicate 
subject.  I  had  rather  proposed  to  myself  safer  ground  in  the 
old  established  philosophical  arguments,  only  content  if  I  could 
give  a  fresh  touch  to  one  or  two  of  them. 

My  brother  Arthur  tells  me  that  Stanley's  popularity  is 
already  commencing  in  London,  and  that  relations  with  the 
young  clergy  are  beginning  to  form,  in  connection  with  soire'es 
at  the  Deanery,  etc. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  answer  to  this  letter,  his  friend  writes : — 

"  I  wish  I  could  come  and  talk  with  you  about  your  subject, 
and  then  hear  you.  I  don't  think  you  need  fear  that  your  subject 
is  one  of  which  all  that  has  to  be  said  has  already  been  said. 
Stanley's  insensibility  to  the  immeasurable  difference  that 
miracle  or  no  miracle  makes  in  our  idea  of  religion  has  always 
struck  me  as  the  most  singular  mark  of  his  want  of  depth.  The 
course  would  be  worth  preaching  if  only  to  impress  on  people's 
minds  how  much  turns  on  miracles." 

In  a  note  to  his  brother,  J.  B.  M.  alludes  to  a  correspondence, 
then  exciting  much  amusement,  between  Dr.  Newman  and 
Mr.  Kingsley,  following  upon  Mr.  Kingsley's  charge,  in  an 
article  in  Maxmillcm,  that  "  truth  for  its  own  sake  had  never 
been  a  virtue  with  the  Eoman  clergy,"  and  that  "Father 
Newman  informs  us  that  it  need  not  be : "  especially  to  the 
"  brief  analysis,"  with  which  Dr.  Newman  sums  up  the  whole 
correspondence. 

"  K.  was  in  a  state  of  ecstasy  upon  the  Newman  and  Kingsley 
correspondence ;  unable  to  contain  himself.  I  think  it  is  the 
best  thing  that  has  appeared  on  the  stage  since  the  Critic — in 
that  line.    P.S. — How  does  take  Kingsley's  fate  ?" 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  261 


Father  Frederick  Faber  died  this  year.  In  a  letter  after 
a  visit  to  his  friend,  Frank  Faber,  after  speaking  of  the  won- 
derful influence  Fr.  Faber  had  in  his  new  communion,  and  of 
instances  that  had  been  brought  before  him,  James  writes : — 

The  house  abounds  with  photographs  of  him.  I  could  not 
help  myself,  notwithstanding  all  these  facts  [quoted  in  the 
letter],  discerning  something  of  the  baby  in  them — an  absence 
of  that  solid  intelligence  which  is  the  natural  result  of  a 
thoughtful  life.  As  for  influence  upon  others,  that  is  a  ques- 
tion which  I  have  not  solved.  .  .  . 

In  my  short  stay  in  London  last  week  I  was  stimulated  by 
curiosity  to  see  how  the  Prince  [of  Wales]  would  carry  off  his 
chairmanship — his  first  appearance  in  public  where  he  had 
anything  to  do.  He  was  perfectly  cool  and  quiet,  and  his 
voice  admirable.  There  were  only  about  three  persons  who 
were  really  heard,  and  he  was  one  of  them;  only  with  this 
difference,  that  they  had  to  exert  their  voices  and  he  did  not 
seem  in  the  least  to  exert  his.  It  was  a  strange  contrast  to  his 
next  neighbour,  Lord  Stanhope,  who  shouted  furiously  without 
the  least  effect. 

Shoreham,  January  31,  1865. 
My  dear  .Church, — We  have  been  so  perfectly  quiet  lately 
that  I  have  hardly  anything  to  say  except  that  the  approach  of 
March  has  compelled  me  to  put  my  B.  L.  thoughts  into  some 
shape.  I  find,  as  I  suppose  other  writers  must  do,  that  the 
rough  drafts  create  some  dismay  on  first  returning  to  them.  It 
was  the  only  subject  that  I  felt  myself  equal  to  undertake, 
from  previous  thought  and  consideration,  of  all  the  subjects 
that  engage  men's  attention  now ;  but  the  conclusion  is  often 
less  hopeful  than  the  beginning  when  the  prospect  is  vague.  I 
begin  March  12,  and  preach  three;  then  start  again  May  7. 
The  difficulty  is  in  dealing  with  something  so  informal  and  un- 
expressed and  indefinite  as  what  constitutes  the  real  objection  to 
miracles  in  doubting  minds.  The  formal,  logical  answers  have 
been  given  over  and  over  again,  and  with  great  force,  but  the 
minds  whom  they  intended  to  convince  do  not  care  the  least 


262 


Letters  of  the 


about  them.  And  yet  no  other  answers  can  be  given  that  I 
know  of.  Thus  one  is  sometimes  struck  with  the  idea  of  the 
entire  superfluousness  of  one's  task,  and  can  only  take  refuge 
in  the  necessity  of  the  case,  that  people  will  be  always  attack- 
ing and  defending  as  long  as  the  world  lasts.  There  is  a 
pleasure  in  having  definite  work,  and  I  have  found  the  occupa- 
tion in  the  main  agreeable.  The  preaching  I  do  not  look 
forward  to  with  much  satisfaction,  not  having  a  vocation  for  it. 
The  evidence  part  is  tiring — so  much  in-and-out  work  with 
testimony,  experience,  laws  of  nature,  and  the  rest,  and  qualify- 
ing of  different  kinds.  I  think  I  shall  try  to  bring  out  in  one 
lecture  towards  the  end  the  argument  that  the  practical  force 
and  success  of  Christianity  has  depended  on  certain  motives, 
which  motives  have  been  supplied  by  certain  doctrines,  which 
doctrines  could  not  have  been  proved  without  miracles. 

It  occurs  to  me  that  the  enclosed  may  interest  you  a  little.1 
It  is  an  account  of  a  paper  read  by  Stanley  at  a  clergy  debat- 
ing society,  which  meets  at  Edward  Kempe's,  which  I  had  from 
Arthur.  I  am  afraid  Stanley  is  going  great  lengths ;  what  I 
like  least  of  all  is  the  claim  for  sympathy — though  only  ah 
extra  sympathy — with  Eenan.  He  forgets  that  Kenan  is  not 
an  unsettled  heathen,  but  an  apostate  from  Christianity,  and 
that  he  (Renan)  puts  his  own  merit  as  an  expositor  on  heathen 
ground. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  Bampton  Lectures  took  J.  B.  M.  much  to  Oxford  the 
earlier  part  of  1865,  the  delivery  of  the  last  lecture  bring- 
ing him  there  at  the  time  of  Commemoration,  an  occasion 
on  which  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  then  a  great  age,  so  noted  a 
figure  in  past  ecclesiastical  excitements  and  events,  decided 
to  be  present. 

1  The  "enclosed"  was  a  letter  from  J.  B.  M.'s  brother  Arthur.  It  is 
acknowledged  with  a  pleasant  recognition  of  its  truth  of  delineation. 
"  Feb.  3. — Thank  you  for  your  brother  Arthur's  account.  How  very  well  he 
does  it.  He  brings  out  so  well  the  point  of  Stanley's  manner — his  rhetorical 
skill — his  aggressive  and  defiant  pluck — his  desperate  determination  to  claim 
everything  and  everybody  with  life  in  them  as  on  his  side.  And  then,  after 
all,  what  is  his  side  ?  What  is  the  nineteenth  century  religion  for  which  all 
things  have  been  preparing,  and  to  which  all  good  things  past  and  present 
are  subservient  and  bear  witness  ?'' 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  263 


To  Key.  E.  W.  Church. 

Oxford,  June  23,  1865. 

I  met  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  at  lunch  at  Magdalen,  at  the 
President's,  quite  a  quiet  affair  as  he  stipulated.  On  first 
coming  into  the  room  he  was  a  sad  picture  of  feebleness, 
but  on  sitting  down  he  became  talkative,  but  only  to  his 
next  neighbour,  and  not  attempting  any  general  conversa- 
tion. I  told  his  daughter,  who  came  with  him,  that  his  face 
struck  me  as  having  more  flesh  than  his  photograph  gave  it, 
and  she  said  he  had  "  gained  "  lately — rather  remarkable  at  his 
age.  When  he  prepared  himself  for  the  outer  air,  so  far  as  a 
chair  can  be  called  that,  he  was,  with  his  black  blinkers  and 
black  spectacles,  and  black  worsted  oversocks,  etc.,  a  most 
singular  object,  exhibiting  life  under  very  unfavourable  appear- 
ances. He  travels  three  hours  at  a  time  by  rail,  but  likes  the 
utmost  speed  when  he  is  on  the  road,  and  hates  stoppages.  His 
poor  daughter  looks  clouded  and  depressed  by  anxiety,  hardly 
speaking  above  her  breath.  Whether  the  disposition  of  the 
old  gentleman  had  anything  to  do  with  it,  I  don't  know.  I  am 
sending  you  an  account  of  one  great  man  in  return  for  your 
picture  of  another,  which  was  very  interesting.  J.  H.  N.'s 
good  spirits  are  a  striking  feature  in  him. 

The  Commemoration  passed  over,  it  was  thought,  well  as 
compared  with  former  ones,  the  under-graduates  subduing  their 
ferocity  a  little.  Michell  from  his  rostrum  defied  them  by  his 
arm  and  looks,  and  as  he  did  it  good-naturedly  he  was  occa- 
sionally cheered,  amid  the  impertinence  ;  but  he  had  a  strong 
source  of  confidence  in  his  son's  Latin  poem.  Son  and  father 
represented  the  Latinity  of  our  rostrum.  .  .  .  Yours  affection- 
ately, J.  B.  M. 

On  the  24th  of  August  1865,  died  Mr.  Bickards  of  Stow- 
Langtoft ;  a  man  most  important  to  all  who  knew  him,  and  with 
many  of  pre-eminent  weight  and  influence — an  influence  perhaps 
peculiarly  dependent  on  personal  intercourse.  J.  B.  M.  writes 
to  his  sister  a  few  days  after  his  death  : — 


264 


Letters  of  the 


Shoreham,  August  29,  1865. 
I  had  heard  only  a  few  days  before  from  Mrs.  Eickards,  about 
a  temporary  curate  for  Stow-Langtoft.  She  was  relieved  from 
the  sense  of  present  danger.  The  sad  news  therefore  was  a 
great  surprise  to  me  at  least.  I  had  always,  from  the  quiet 
strength  of  body  and  mind  which  he  showed  at  Brighton,  his 
walking  and  talking  powers,  looked  forward  to  an  advanced  old 
age  for  him.  Perhaps  the  sea  air  set  him  up  and  showed  him 
to  advantage.  He  has  been,  one  may  say,  one  of  the  principal 
images  that  one  has  carried  about  in  one's  mind  through  life — 
I  mean  personal  images.  There  was  something  about  him  that 
made  one  often  think  of  him.  .  .  .  Mr.  Eickards  had  weight, 
yet  it  is  curious  to  see  how  gifts  get  divorced,  which  if  com- 
bined would  have  produced  great  power.  Had  Mr.  Eickards, 
with  his  weight,  had  forcible  and  popular  gifts,  oratory,  or  power 
of  style,  he  would  have  been  able  to  take  a  leadership  of 
numbers,  and  sustain  a  situation  of  command.  As  it  was,  his 
sphere  was  confined.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  how  little  are  the 
other  gifts  without  that  inimitable  one  of  weight.  What  weak 
creatures  people  are  without  it !  I  cannot  help  therefore  re- 
garding Mr.  Eickards  as,  in  Carlyle's  phrase,  a  strong  man. 
He  kept  his  ground  through  life  ;  nothing  displaced  him.  He 
had  always  command  of  himself,  and  could  do  what  he  aimed  at 
doing,  though  he  moderated  his  aim.  I  was  looking  over  his 
fifteenth  sermon  the  other  day — "  Godliness  the  ground  of  self- 
command."  It  is  unconsciously  self-descriptive.  He  talks  of 
what  he  aims  at,  and,  as  what  he  aims  at  he  attained,  the  image 
he  draws  is  necessarily  one  of  himself. 

On  the  question  of  a  memoir,  J.  13.  M.  writes  : — 
To  his  Sister. 

November  21,  1865. 
Mrs.  Bay ne's  letter  is  equally  sensible  and  feeling.  Her  idea 
of  collecting  family  reminiscences  and  associations  for  preserva- 
tion is  much  on  the  Mr.  Eickards'  type,  and  shows  the  sort  of 
mind  that  would  particularly  appreciate  him.  About  a  memoir, 
the  question  certainly  deserves  considering,  though  there  would 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  265 


be  peculiar  difficulties  in  this  case,  arising  from  the  fact  that 
Mr.  E.  was  so  especially  a  person  who  required  to  be  seen  in 
order  to  be  understood.  The  difficulty  of  producing  in  the 
reader  the  true  conception  of  the  man  without  sight  would 
be  very  great.  It  might  not  be  amiss,  if  it  could  be  done,  to 
ascertain  what  amount  of  correspondence  there  was  preserved. 
Letters  to  and  from  Davison,  for  example,  supposing  these  to 
be  forthcoming,  on  religious  questions,  would  be  interesting. 
In  lack  of  correspondence,  the  substance  of  a  memoir  would 
depend  on  the  recollections  of  those  who  knew  him ;  things 
said  on  particular  occasions,  conversations  of  a  definite  kind. 
It  would  be  anecdotal.  Without  enough  material  a  memoir 
would  do  him  rather  injustice.  The  sort  of  career  his  was 
would  not  lead  one  to  expect  much  quantity  of  this. 

Mrs.  Eickards  sent  me  Keble's  letter,  which  was  character- 
istically worded.  The  hand  showed  much  alteration.  I  liked 
it  much,  and  thought  the  slight  touches  of  description  in  it 
very  true  portraiture. 

No  memoir  was  attempted,  but  the  view  of  what  it  should 
be,  what  should  be  aimed  at,  is  applicable  to  the  subject  of 
memoirs  generally.  Writing  to  Mr.  Church,  J.  B.  M.  says  of 
Mr.  Eickards : — 

"  It  is  remarkable  what  a  large  private  circle  he  had,  who 
all  felt  indebted  to  him  for  making  them,  so  to  speak.  Mrs. 
E.  has  hundreds  of  letters  from  people.  She  is  very  sensible, 
however,  and  is  aware  of  the  difference  between  a  large  private 
circle  and  public  life  as  the  ground  of  a  memoir.  She  has 
asked  me  to  assist  her  in  it." 

To  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  October  23,  1865. 
My  dear  Church, — What  an  eventful  week  we  have  had! 
Odd  that  Stanley  should  so  immediately  succeed  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury as  the  counsellor  in  Church  promotions,  as  I  suppose  he 
will  do  now.  At  least  if  he  does  not  absolutely,  it  will  be 
curious  to  see  what  modifications  of  influence  Lord  Eussell 


266 


Letters  of  the 


will  allow  him.  The  Record  was  in  black  upon  the  occasion. 
How  studiously  Lord  Palmerston's  illness,  which  seems  to  have 
been  going  on  some  time,  was  concealed,  quite  like  some 
Eastern  potentate's.  .  .  .  The  Times  gave  its  first  intimation 
that  "  Lord  Palmerston  was  seriously  ill,"  which  it  modified 
by  the  expression  that  it  "  did  not  wish  to  alarm  the  friends  of 
the  noble  Premier,"  when  he  was  dead.  He  was  lying  dead  at 
the  time  people  were  taking  up  the  Times  at  their  breakfast 
tables.  I  suppose  Gladstone  will  feel  disappointed,  Lord  K. 
being  so  unpopular  with  the  subordinates  ;  still  they  prefer 
him  to  G-.  What  up-hill  work  it  is  a  man  getting  to  the  top — 
Alps  on  Alps,  etc.  I  should  think,  however,  that  a  little  dis- 
cretion, which  he  must  learn  now,  will  insure  it  to  him,  but 
when  ?  The  articles  on  Lord  Palmerston  have  been  very  poor, 
the  writers  unable  to  feign  any  surprise  or  solemnity.  Yet 
surely  such  a  disappearance  is  a  great  fact.  It  does  not  signify 
a  man's  age — he  is  alive  till  he  is  dead. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

Shoreham,  November  8,  1865. 
My  dear  Church, — We  have  not,  after  all,  gone  our  in- 
tended Paris  trip.  ...  Our  outing  will  probably  be  limited  to 
a  few  days  at  Finchampstead,  the  end  of  this  month.  I  pre- 
sume the  same  literary  theological  projects  that  reach  me  reach 
you  too.  I  was  asked  some  weeks  ago  to  write  for  a  volume 
of  essays,  to  be  published  by  Longman,  under  the  editorship 
of  Mr.  Orby  Shipley,  of  whom  I  did  not  know  much.  I 
did  not  feel  in  a  very  writing  humour,  so  excused  myself. 
Another  project  reaches  me  to-day,  and  I  also  have  no 
doubt  yourself  by  the  same  post — the  Contemporary,  under 
Dean  Alford's  editorship.  L  writes  to  enlist  contributors.  I 
should  have  thought  that  L.,  as  a  man  of  the  world,  would  have 
not  meddled  much  with  such  breakdown  undertakings  as  new 
reviews.  He  takes  high  ground,  however,  and  urges  the  neces- 
sities of  the  times,  and  that  something  should  be  done  to  meet 
the  "  new  school "  in  a  Liberal  quarter.  I  am  sorry  to  say  my 
stock  of  enthusiasm  is  rather  low,  and  one  acquires  a  kind  of 
notion  that  certain  movements  die  out  of  themselves,  without 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


267 


so  much  writing  against  them.  Though,  if  conscientious  men 
think  differently,  one  is  ready  to  wish  them  all  success  in  their 
plans.  .  .  .  And  if  one  had  anything  to  say  perhaps  one  ought 
not  to  stand  aloof,  but  that  if  is  rather  a  puzzle. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — The  lectures  will  be  out  in  a  few  days.  I  hardly  know 
whether  to  be  glad  or  sorry  to  have  done  with  them.  One  feels 
a  kind  of  blank.  You  are  responsible  for  a  paragraph  in  the 
first,  and  also  for  a  note  on  the  same  subject — Patristic  estimate 
of  miracles  as  evidence — a  note  of  yours  having  suggested  the 
subject  to  me.    The  note  has  exceeded  the  proper  limits  of  one. 


To  the  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  February  19,  1866. 
...  I  have  of  course  many  regrets  with  respect  to  the  per- 
formance. One  is,  that  I  have  not  brought  out  Clarke's 
Demonstration,  which  is  undoubtedly  a  very  great  book,  and 
I  think  contains  in  germ  the  answer  to  the  physical  concep- 
tion of  a  Deity  now  prevailing,  and  the  proof  of  another  world. 
I  mean  that  it  is  the  answer  to  the  scientific  people  on  that 
point.  As  a  personal  Deity  was,  however,  assumed  in  my 
argument,  I  did  not  think  of  it,  and  his  title  of  Demonstration 
has  always  given  me  a  prejudice  against  the  book.  It  is  really, 
however,  a  mistake  in  the  name  rather  than  in  the  substance 
of  the  book.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — What  wonderful  Parisian  gaieties  I1 

1  The  letter  encloses  a  newspaper  paragraph  (the  reference  of  course 
appended  by  the  sender) : — "The  Paris  correspondent  of  The  Morning  Star 
describes  a  novel  costume  at  the  fancy  ball  given  at  the  Tuileries  last 
week: — ' The  Marchioness  de  Gallifet,  as  the  Archangel  Gabriel,  attracted 
all  eyes  ;  her  short  petticoat  of  white  cashmere  embroidered  in  gold,  the 
glittering  scale-armour  of  gold  fitting  tightly  to  her  figure,  her  golden  hair 
floating  on  her  shoulders,  star-lighted  by  an  etoile  of  diamonds,  invisibly 
suspended  over  her  forehead,  her  wings  of  white  feathers,  which,  in  arching 
above  her  head,  only  terminated  below  her  knee,  and,  above  all,  the  golden 
sword  clasped  tightly  in  her  fairy  hand,  and  brandished  even  while  dancing, 
formed  a  most  bewitching  tout  ensemble.'"    See  2  Cor.  xi.  14. 


268 


Letters  of  the 


To  Rev.  R  W.  Church. 

March  7,  1866. 

...  I  have  been  staying  with  Arthur,  and  went  to  the  St. 
James's  clerical  meeting  on  Thursday  evening.  Stanley  on  the 
Irenicon.  It  was  a  well-worded  and  clear  paper,  of  course 
viewing  the  subject  entirely  on  his  own  side  of  it.  When 
questioned  by  Lord  A.  Hervey,  Irons,  etc.,  what  doctrinal  veto 
he  proposed  upon  absolute  universal  comprehension,  he 
diplomatised,  and  I  understood  him  to  say  that  was  not  the 
time  for  entering  on  that  part  of  the  subject.  Pusey  was 
expected  up,  but  failed  at  the  moment  from  a  cold,  Acland 
interposing.  The  substantial  feeling  of  the  meeting  was  against 
Stanley — though  he  is  complimented  by  everybody,  in  such  a 
way  that  he  is  not  unlikely  to  be  deceived,  and  to  take  it  more 
as  a  sign  than  it  really  is.  Mrs.  Arthur  Mozley,  who  was  with 
a  few  ladies  within  hearing,  in  E.  K.'s  study,  which  enters  into 
the  vestry,  said,  as  soon  as  the  paper  was  over,  a  young  man 
rushed  up  to  Lady  Augusta,  exclaiming,  "  He  is  a  prophet ;  He 
is  a  prophet."  Irons  spoke  well.  There  was  Oxenham,  the 
convert.  He  spoke  in  favour  of  Rome  as  a  conciliator — that 
she  was  ready  to  act  on  Wiseman's  dictum,  "  We  must  explain 
to  the  uttermost."  The  facts  don't  look  like  it.  All  the  world 
is  talking  of  Ecce  Homo. — Yours  affectionately,        J.  B.  M. 

In  the  spring  of  1866  J.  B.  M.,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and 
her  sister,  Miss  Ogle,  took  a  well-earned  holiday  of  two  months 
abroad.  The  journey  had  been  delayed,  and  even  rendered 
uncertain,  by  the  illness  of  one  or  two  humble  parishioners, 
who  happily  recovered  in  time  for  the  party  to  leave  home  in 
comfort. 

To  his  Sister. 

Genoa,  April  12,  1866. 
I  date  this  letter  from  the  city  of  palaces,  but  shall  not  be 
able  to  finish  it  here.    I  will  put  down  a  little,  however,  while 
first  impressions  continue.    Genoa  is  a  city  of  palaces.  There 
are  very  large  suburbs  which  do  not  partake  of  that  character, 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


269 


but  are  entirely  utilitarian,  dirty,  and  ugly.  Taking  in  the 
suburbs,  it  is  an  immense  place,  much  larger  than  I  had  thought ; 
these  suburbs,  however,  figure  as  separate  towns  in  guide- 
books, etc.  In  fact,  the  whole  country  from  Voltri,  about 
twelve  miles  off,  is  a  suburb.  But  Genoa  real  is  unmistak- 
able, as  soon  as  you  enter.  You  are  almost  immediately  in  the 
Strada  Balbi — itself,  by  the  way,  once  a  suburb  to  the  very 
old  town.  You  know  where  you  are  then.  It  is  magnificent. 
"We  entered  by  a  good  evening  light.  I  can  give  some  idea 
of  it  perhaps,  by  saying  that  it  is  to  the  eye  what  a  deep  peal 
of  thunder  is  to  the  ear.  The  stupendous  size  of  the  palaces, 
their  enormous  height, — with  a  good  deal  of  dead  wall  about 
some  of  them,  only  relieved  by  rich  and  bold  projected  orna- 
mentation— which  you  cannot  easily  take  in,  for  you  cannot 
see  to  the  top  of  them  but  by  stretching  your  neck  back  at 
right  angles,  all  these  giants,  standing  in  a  solemn  row  on 
each  side,  constitute  indeed  a  sight.  I  do  not  know  whether 
Emerson's  friend 1  would  call  it  "  religion,"  but  it  has  certainly 
as  much  ri«ht  to  that  name  as  Mademoiselle  Cerito's  dancinp;. 

The  Strada  Balbi  is  only  the  beginning  of  one  long  street  of 
palaces,  which  goes  through  the  Piazza  dell'  Annunziata,  the 
Strada  Nuovissima,  Strada  Nuova,  and  Piazza  della  Fontana 
Amorosa.  The  narrowness  of  the  streets  sets  off  the  massive- 
ness  of  the  architecture.  Everything  is  brought  together  in 
one  mass  of  richness.  I  say  narrow — but  they  are  like  Begent 
Street  in  width,  compared  with  those  of  the  old  town,  which 
are  simply  alleys.  Yet  in  these  too  are  congregated  numbers 
of  huge  old  palaces — the  residences  of  the  old  families  before 
they  left  for  the  new  streets.  In  the  darkness  in  which  you 
walk,  you  do  not  see  they  arc  old  palaces  till  you  look  up 
and  see  rich  balconies  hanging  an  immense  height  over  you. 
The  effect  of  some  of  the  old  streets  is  very  fine — they  seem, 
from  their  narrowness,  constantly  ending  in  a  point,  like  the 
gorges  of  the  Bhine. 

We  inquired  at  the  Balbi  Palace,  but  were  told  we  could 

1  Alluding  to  the  story  of  Emerson  and  Margaret  Fuller  at  the  opera, 
under  the  spell  of  Cerito's  grace — "  Margaret,  this  is  poetry."  "No,  Ealph, 
it  is  religion." 


270 


Letters  of  the 


not  see  it,  the  Marchesa  Balbi  having  been  ill  for  a  month. 
We  then  crossed  the  street  to  the  Durazzo  Palace,  and  saw  it ; 
magnificent  white  marble  entrance-court,  white  marble  columns 
and  staircase ;  the  rooms  all  splendid  in  damask  and  gold. 
There  were  iu  one  room  two  very  fine  vases  of  Cellini,  made 
for  the  Durazzo  of  that  day,  with  the  Durazzo  arms  upon  them. 
There  was  a  portrait  of  the  late  Marquis,  in  his  costume  as  a 
Genoese  noble — a  black  velvet  cloak — black  silk  cassock  (as  it 
seems),  and  a  gold  chain  round  his  neck.  In  the  other  room 
the  same  person  appeared  in  his  ordinary  costume,  dressed  like 
an  English  gentleman — frock-coat,  and  the  choker  worn  some 
twenty  years  ago.  The  Durazzos  live  there  always.  There  is 
something  singular  in  the  fidelity  of  some  of  the  old  families 
to  Genoa.  There  they  live,  with  suburbs  like  those  of  a  manu- 
facturing town  within  half-a-mile  of  them.  The  King  of 
Sardinia's  Palace  is  in  the  Strada  Balbi — as  long  as  an  ordinary 
street  itself. 

We  saw  everywhere  signs  of  a  popular  constitution — placards 
addressed  "  Elettori  "  and  "  Concittadini  ; "  the  style  very 
magnificent.  You  cannot  tell  at  all  what  they  are  about,  the 
writers  are  in  too  inspired  and  expansive  a  state  of  mind  to 
state  anything  definite.  We  found  out,  however,  on  inquiry, 
that  one  related  to  a  national  subscription  which  was  being 
raised  to  supply  the  void  in  the  taxes.  We  were  told  in  the 
bookseller's  shop  that  they  were  in  good  heart,  and  the  sum 
considered  sure  of  being  collected.  The  Dorias  have  deserted 
Genoa,  and  live  at  Eome,  calling  themselves  Doria  Pamphili. 
Two  rooms  and  a  corridor  alone  are  shown  in  the  palace,  four 
centuries  old  nearly,  just  the  very  beginning  of  the  renaissance. 
The  great  Doria's  bedroom  is  kept  as  it  was — bedstead,  etc., 
his  portrait,  taken  after  death,  looking  down  upon  the  scene. 
His  live  portrait  presents  a  grand  shrewd  old  face.  He  was  a 
friend  of  Charles  v.  He  seems  to  have  surrounded  himself 
with  boundless  magnificence. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  the  Cornice  Eoad.  We  had  good, 
not  perfect  weather — two  sunshiny  days,  and  two  with  good 
sky  light  and  occasional  rain.  I  need  not  say  it  is  a  land 
of  olive  trees,  oranges,  and  lemons — sometimes  growing  wild 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


271 


apparently  on  the  rocks.  The  succession  of  beautiful  little 
bays  makes  a  pleasing  variety  ;  also,  what  is  a  great  feature,  the 
rapid  succession  of  antique  little  cities,  glittering  with  white 
and  pink  in  the  distance.  Italy  is  certainly  pre-eminently  a 
land  of  plaster.  But  plaster  does  not  produce  the  same  ideas 
there  that  it  does  with  us,  where  it  is  mean  architecturally. 
You  see  it  is  the  ancient  rule  and  fashion.  The  gay  white  and 
pink,  combined  with  the  loftiness  and  good  grouping  of  the 
houses,  creates  a  kind  of  illusion  as  you  approach.  Every  little 
fishing  village  looks  almost  palatial  in  the  distance.  It  is  as  if 
Quorndon,  Spondon,  and  Borrowash  were  suddenly  seized  with 
the  desire  of  making  themselves  look  fascinating  and  composed 
of  marble  palaces.  Alassio  is  of  another  type — like  a  city  on 
the  Bhine.  It  is  a  very  populous  region.  Were  I  to  say  the 
whole  road  up  to  Genoa  was  one  street,  I  should  be  exaggerat- 
ing, but  there  would  be  a  foundation  of  truth.  I  am  writing 
at  a  resting-place  in  the  Apennines — Borghetto,  where  our 
voiturier  rests  his  horses  an  hour.  This  is  the  other  Cornice 
Koad,  on  the  other  side  the  corner.  It  has  grander  features  of 
scenery  than  the  Genoese  or  the  Cornice  Boad — the  bays  deeper 
and  more  strikingly  shaped,  and  the  mountains  higher.  We 
had  a  fine  Italian  sunset  at  Sestri  last  night,  brilliant  light 
yellow,  and  those  hard,  sharp  outlined  clouds  you  have  in 
Salvator  Bosa  and  the  Italian  school,  with  successive  sudden 
darkenings,  like  those  of  a  stage — a  perfectly  purple  range  of 
mountains,  the  sea  gradually  becoming  pink — till  all  faded 
away.  To-day  our  scenery  has  been  all  Apennine,  with  only 
occasional  glimpses  of  sea — very  grand ;  but  no  castles,  and 
therefore  no  Castle  of  Udolfo.  This  evening  we  hope  to  reach 
Leghorn  by  rail,  and  thence  to  Borne  to-morrow. 

I  observed,  as  we  went  along  all  the  way,  the  priests  seemed 
better  friends  with  the  people  than  they  are  in  France.  One 
sees  them  walking  with  and  chatting  with  people.  In  France 
they  seem  to  be  always  walking  hurriedly  by  themselves  through 
the  streets,  as  if  only  some  professional  object  took  them  out, 
and  have  a  look  of  being  pursued.  Some  of  them  here,  too, 
look  of  a  better  class  than  the  French  priests.  We  have  made 
a  few  purchases  of  Genoa  gold  work,  and  a  rather  majestic 


272 


Letters  of  the 


damsel  tempted  Amelia  and  Janet  to  invest  in  lace  yesterday 
at  Sestri,  which  is  a  lace  place.  I  admired  her  voice  and  utter- 
ance, which  reminded  me  of  what  the  Opium-eater  says  about 
the  voices  of  Italian  women.  They  have  nightingale  throats. 
We  are  pursued,  of  course,  by  little  boys  and  girls  begging, 
but  this  is  since  we  left  old  Sardinian  territory.  Here  we  are 
in  new  Sardinia.  The  Italian  women  are  more  striking  than 
the  men — handsome  and  expressive  features.  You  observe 
their  walk.  They  all  walk  exceedingly  well,  and  all  just  alike ; 
their  figures  very  upright,  while  they  plant  their  feet  on  the 
ground  firmly,  and  with  perfect  regularity  of  pace,  as  if  each 
foot  felt  a  sense  of  responsibility,  which,  in  fact,  it  does,  for 
their  walk  results  from  their  practice  of  carrying  great  burdens 
balanced  on  their  heads,  which  compels  these  measured  steps. 
But  the  habit  formed  continues  when  the  cause  is  absent. 
Even  little  girls  walk  like  soldiers.  The  children  have  animated 
vivacious  faces.  We  have  had  a  most  moderate  temperature 
hitherto.  I  could  not  have  told  we  were  not  in  England,  all 
our  wraps  have  been  brought  into  use  constantly.  I  suppose 
the  warmth  begins  suddenly. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  Rhone  and  its  cities.  They  are 
wonderful  specimens  of  hoary  antiquity ;  and  passing  so  quickly 
by  the  scenes  of  old  Councils  and  Popes,  one  historical  place 
after  another,  especially  in  the  languid  condition  of  a  night 
railway  traveller,  when  morning  opens,  was  like  a  dream.  But 
Marseilles  rapidly  dispels  such  illusions — an  intensely  modern 
citizen  of  the  world  place — all  the  men  of  the  higher  ranks  dis- 
carding everything,  even  French,  and  looking  just  like  men  in 
London. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sistee. 

Rome,  April  22,  1866. 
We  have  been  here  now  nearly  a  week,  which  has  gone  away 
quickly.  We  were  shot  here  through  the  darkness  by  the  rail 
from  Civita  Vecchia,  so  that  our  first  impressions  had  to  wait 
for  the  light.  We  went  to  the  English  service,  and  thence 
straight  to  St.  Peter's.    Now  for  the  great  question,  the  apparent 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


size.  My  own  experience  is  this.  You  are  disappointed  just 
the  first  moment  as  to  the  size,  till  you  cast  your  eyes  on  the 
floor.  Then  it  is  no  longer  a  secret.  It  is  the  largest  expanse 
of  floor  you  have  ever  had  before  you,  there  can  be  no  doubt ; 
and  from  the  floor  the  size  of  the  building  then  comes  to  you. 
I  was  not  disappointed  then.  There  was  a  true  idea  of  im- 
mense size.  If  ever  you  find  the  impression  of  size  diminish- 
ing, look  at  the  floor  again ;  that  revives  it.  I  think  people 
make  a  mistake  generally  in  looking  up  only ;  they  ought  to 
look  down  a  great  deal.  The  floor  is  the  grand  first  element, 
which  is  outside  of,  and  is  not  within  the  contracting  influence 
of  proportion.  Then,  too,  English  travellers,  from  the  way  in 
which  our  cathedrals  strike  the  eye,  are  apt  to  look  to  the  length 
as  the  great  thing.  In  St.  Peter's  it  is  sjmce — vast  space  on 
all  sides  of  you.  The  huge  masses  of  piers  rise  in  seas  of  space 
on  all  sides  of  them,  which  your  eye  catches,  as  the  segments 
appear — intersections  of  it  on  all  sides.  The  richness  of  the 
whole  effect  is  wonderful.  It  is  not  gorgeousness,  for  that  is 
too  heavy,  but  a  most  perfect  blending  of  all  colour.  The 
whole  is  to  the  eye  one  mosaic.  It  seems  as  if  designed  to  be 
a  most  costly  and  regal  feast  to  that  organ.  I  would  not  say  it 
did  not  inspire  religious  feelings,  and  yet  I  think  it  would  be 
nearer  to  the  ocular  truth  to  call  it  a  palace  than  a  church — 
such  a  palace  as  might  be  discovered  underground  or  under 
the  sea  in  some  classical  Arabian  Nights'  world.  I  need  not 
go  into  particulars,  all  of  which  you  have  in  Murray. 

In  the  spirit  of  the  whole  structure,  and  of  its  monumental 
adornments  especially,  there  is,  of  course,  material  for  criticism. 
It  is  more  of  a  glorification  of  the  great  Italian  families  than  I 
expected.  One  was  prepared  for  the  Papacy  being  enthroned 
there,  but  not  so  much  for  the  building  being  converted  to  the 
purpose  of  family  exaltation,  for  Borgheses,  Farneses,  Medicis, 
Barberinis,  Odescalchis,  etc.  The  family  names  of  the  Popes 
appear  on  their  monuments,  with  their  colossal  escutcheons  in 
bronze  or  marble,  so  that  a  monument  to  a  Pope  is  virtually  an 
enthronement  of  the  family  in  the  place.  Even  round  the  high 
Altar  itself  the  bees  of  the  Barberinis  go  up  the  bronze  pillars, 
and  their  coats  of  arms  at  the  basement  would  make  the  floor 

s 


274 


Letters  oj  the 


of  a  moderate  room.  Before  you  enter,  as  you  look  up  at  the 
facade,  the  first  words  you  see  are  "  Paul  Borghese."  The  Popes 
sit  on  royal  chairs  on  their  monuments,  stretching  out  their 
right  arms  in  an  attitude  of  sovereignty  and  imperial  power. 
Canova  has  the  merit  of  making  his  Popes  kneel — i.e.  he  deserves 
praise  for  his  intention ;  but  I  doubt  whether  the  other  position 
does  not  best  suit  them.  We  attended  vespers  in  the  choir  chapel 
on  Sunday — the  music  and  voices  first-rate,  in  the  operatic  style. 
It  is  curious  to  see  the  minute  proportion  of  the  vast  building 
which  is  congregational ;  the  choir  chapel  would  hardly  accom- 
modate more  than  fifty  comfortably,  leaving  out  the  choristers, 
canons,  etc.  However,  perhaps  it  adds  to  the  dignity  of  the 
edifice,  the  very  small  ordinary  use  that  is  made  of  it.  .  .  . 

We  find  ourselves  comfortable  enough  here.  We  are  getting 
within  the  fascinating  influence  of  the  mosaic  and  gold  shops.1 
The  work  is  most  beautiful.  .  .  .  The  Vatican  was  a  day's  work. 
I  was  taken  up  by  the  guide  into  the  entrance  hall  of  the  Pope's 
residence,  where  ladies  are  not  admitted.  In  the  corner  was  a 
door,  which  was  explained  by  repeating  several  times  "  Machinal 
Machina  !"  It  was  a  lift  to  pull  the  Pope  up,  and  save  him  the 
ascending  staircase,  to  his  high  lodgings. — Yours,     J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Eev.  R  W.  Church. 

Pome,  April  30,  1866. 
My  dear  Church, — I  just  write  to  you  a  line  from  the  great 
city,  where  we  have  been  a  fortnight.  The  whirl  of  sight- 
seeing is  against  forming  any  general  view  of  a  place,  and,  as  far 
as  sentiment  goes,  it  becomes  impossible.  Getting  up  one  thing- 
is  very  like  getting  up  anything  else.  The  first  impression  one 
had  to  account  for  was  one's  feeling  so  much  at  home  in  the 
place.  It  was  not  like  other  places  in  this  respect.  One  had 
not  that  feeling  of  being  a  stranger  and  foreigner.  I  think  old 
school-boy  reminiscences  had  something  to  do  with  this.    It  is 

1  A  pretty  scene  lives  in  the  memory  on  occasion  of  their  visit  to  his 
mother,  on  their  return  from  this  foreign  excursion — Amelia  suddenly 
descending  on  the  home  circle,  laden  with  an  arm  full  of  offerings,  hidden 
in  jeweller's  cases,  which  she  distributed  with  a  characteristic  sprightly 
grace  ;  every  gift  showing  that  the  purchasers  had  had  the  destined  recipient 
in  their  eye  when  the  choice  was  made. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


275 


the  locality  of  such  very  old  familiar  names  and  facts,  every- 
thing that  was  hammered  into  one's  head  when  one  was  twelve 
years  old,  that  one  cannot  well  feel  forlorn  or  estranged.  One 
seems  to  have  a  right  here.  Even  the  S.  P.  Q.  R.  on  the 
municipal  placards  and  the  Senator's  carriage  is  sufficient  to 
put  one  at  ease ;  and  the  Forum  and  Mons  Capitolinus  are 
such  very  old  friends  that  one  does  not  stand  on  any  ceremony 
with  them.  If  one  had  to  choose  a  residence  out  of  England, 
Pome  would  have  great  attractions  on  this  ground — i.e.  that 
one  has  in  a  sense  belonged  to  the  place  so  long  that  it  would 
be  next  in  point  of  domesticity  to  being  in  England.  Even 
the  severities  of  early  school  discipline,  on  the  olim  mcminissc 
principle,  form  a  basis  of  attachment. 

Now  for  the  place  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  eye.  I  think 
its  tristcssc  has  been  exaggerated.  The  number  of  huge  blocks 
of  public  and  ecclesiastical  buildings — seminaries,  propagandas, 
etc.  etc. — impart  a  heaviness,  so  far  as  that  goes;  but  the 
largeness  and  number  of  piazzas,  the  width  of  the  streets  com- 
pared with  other  continental  towns,  and  the  splendour  of  some 
of  the  palaces,  produce  a  cheerful  effect.  One  sees  so  much 
sky,  and  does  not  walk  about  with  houses  tumbling  on  one's 
head.  I  was  not  disappointed  with  the  size  of  St.  Peter's — 
the  interior.  Whatever  people  say,  it  does  look  very  large 
indeed  to  the  eye — naturally  and  immediately.  The  floor  is 
obviously  immense.  The  vastness  of  the  ccquor  marmoreum 
upon  which  the  pillars  rest  communicates  itself  to  the  erections 
upon  it.  The  effect  on  the  eye  of  the  interior  has  hardly,  I 
think,  a  word  in  English  to  describe  it.  If  '  luscious '  had  a 
sublime  sense,  it  would  do  in  a  way.  It  is  a  perfect  feast  to 
the  eye,  by  its  perfect  blending  and  commingling  of  colours  in 
connection  with  beautiful  proportions  and  vastness.  The  eye 
has  everything  it  wants,  though,  at  the  same  time,  the  effect  is 
palatial  rather  than  ecclesiastical.  It  is,  however,  a  kind  of 
transcendental  palatial,  and  you  recognise  it  as  sacred. 

We  have  antiquarianised  in  the  Forum  and  Colosseum, 
Capitol,  etc.,  in  the  ordinary  way,  and  received  the  last  dogmas 
about  sites  and  temples.  One  is  astonished  in  the  Vatican  at 
the  immense  numbers  of  good  busts  and  statues  of  the  old 


276 


Letters  of  t lie 


world.  Considering  the  plough  had  gone  literally  over  every- 
thing, the  quantity  of  recovery  is  enormous.  There  are  so 
many  actual  faces  of  the  old  distingues  saved — you  know  what 
they  were.  Even  ladies'  faces  and  fashions  of  dressing  the 
hair — sufficiently  ugly  many  of  them — are  a  disclosure  of  the 
old  Roman  fashionable  world.  And  the  heads  are  so  entire 
and  clean — not  a  feature  spoilt :  e.g.,  the  bust  of  Ceesar,  in  the 
Palazzo  Rospigliosi,  one  sees  must  have  been  an  excellent 
likeness — something  between  Lord  Brougham  and  J.  H.  N. 
Augustus  you  have  every  variety  of,  and  see  the  change  in  his 
features  as  he  became  older.  That  handsome  fat  youth  Nero 
must,  as  a  beauty,  have  been  criticised,  though  he  is  evidently 
quite  satisfied  with  himself.  I  was  struck  with  the  English 
look  of  many  of  the  faces :  e.g.  Pompey,  in  the  famous  Spada 
statue.  We  have  not  yet  seen  the  Pope,  though  he  has  been 
seen.  He  goes  out  for  his  drive,  they  say,  every  day  about 
three  o'clock,  or  later,  and  sometimes  gets  out  of  his  carriage 
and  walks  ;  but  one  has  no  means  of  knowing  in  what  direction 
he  drives.  We  saw  Antonelli  in  the  Eotunda  in  the  Vatican, 
looking,  at  a  spare  moment,  at  the  new  Hercules.  He  is  very 
polite,  and  gave  us  a  sweeping  bow,  with  uplifted  hat,  in 
passing.  .  .  .  W.  Palmer  has  been  most  good-natured  in  show- 
ing us  about,  though,  he  says,  this  is  an  office  he  has  had  to 
do  for  so  many,  that  he  might  as  well  turn  cicerone,  and  charge 
his  scudi.  He  has  got  up  Eome  in  a  way  that  only  a  Palmer 
could — exhausting  every  fact,  speculation,  and  conjecture — 
Basilicas,  Forum,  Catacombs,  everything.  Though  he  only 
gives  as  much  in  his  explanations  as  he  thinks  his  hearers 
capable  of  receiving  ;  the  amount  of  the  discharge  is  extraordi- 
nary. .  .  . 

Palmer  admitted  that  the  exclusion  of  the  upper  classes 
of  Italians  from  public  business  was  a  great  evil,  throw- 
ing them  upon  a  volatile  life  as  the  alternative.  They  have 
not  the  idea  of  labour,  he  says,  in  their  heads,  and  view  life 
simply  as  a  succession  of  amusements.  One  sees  them  on  the 
Pincian.  They  dress  quietly,  and  very  much  like  Englishmen ; 
but  one's  eye  catches  odd  things  occasionally  one  would  not 
see  in  England  ;  e.g.,  a  young  swell  driving  round  the  Pincian 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


277 


in  a  most  elegant  basket- carriage,  with  a  pair  of  horses  and  a 
postilion,  himself  alone  in  his  carriage,  smoking.  That  Pin- 
cian,  by  the  way,  is  a  most  extraordinary  scene — fashionable 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  priests,  clerical  students  in  black,  white, 
and  red,  friars  with  the  cords  hanging  from  their  waists,  sleek 
Monsignors,  etc.,  all  mixed  together  in  the  promenade-recrea- 
tion of  the  day.  Several  families  have  managed  to  retain  their 
pictures.  It  is,  by  the  way,  one  of  the  features  of  Eome,  which 
makes  one  feel  at  home  in  it,  that  it  is  such  a  centre  and 
collection  of  originals  of  old  familiar  groups,  and  figures,  and 
heads,  that  one  has  known  ever  since  one  was  born. 

We  met  the  other  day  Mrs.  Bamsay,  the  translator  of  Dante, 
a  very  handsome,  intelligent  woman,  though  talking  with  such 
extreme  Scotch  it  was  sometimes  not  easy  to  follow  her.  Her 
favourite  here  is  Cardinal  Andrea,  now  sent  away  from  Eome 
for  his  liberalising  bias.  He  is,  she  says,  a  really  devout  man, 
and  a  fervent  man,  but  he  cannot  bear  the  political  Papacy. 
He  is  a  good  Catholic,  but  says  the  Reformation  was  the  fault 
of  Rome :  he  is  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Ramsay,  who  seems  to  have 
seen  a  good  deal  of  him.  They  are  very  much  afraid  of  him 
here,  and  there  is  a  row  going  on  now  ;  and  a  fierce  letter  of 
Andrea's  is  talked  about.  The  distinction  is  great  between  the 
streets  of  Genoa,  placarded  with  addresses  to  electors  and  con- 
cittadini,  and  the  streets  of  Rome,  where,  besides  the  municipal 
notifications,  the  only  public  notice  I  have  seen  is  a  Vendita 
dei  Cavalli  stuck  up  on  the  Palazza  Doria — the  Prince  being 
announced  to  preside  over  it.  Fox-hunting  is  a  rising  movement. 
Jockey-cap  ladies'  work-boxes  are  seen  in  the  shop-windows, 
and  the  omnibuses  call  themselves  Apollo,  La  Volpe,  dividing 
themselves  between  the  old  and  new  claims.  At  Leghorn 
the  engines  were  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  etc.  The  lottery  goes  on 
with  undiminished  popularity. — With  kindest  remembrances 
to  Mrs.  Church,  yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  ins  Sister. 

Rome,  April  30,  1866. 
.  .  .  We  are  charmed  with  the  Campagna  and  its  mountains, 
the  distant  pieces  of  bright  green  come  out  so  in  the  spring, 


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Letters  of  the 


and  the  variations  of  lights  and  shades  on  the  mountains  in 
this  clear  air,  which  reveals  the  minutest  slope  and  ravine, 
makes  the  whole  like  one  of  those  pictures  inserted  in  a 
crystal.  I  do  not,  however,  remember  a  single  passage  in 
Horace  in  praise  of  Eoman  scenery,  which  he  must  have  had 
before  him  every  time  he  took  his  walk  out  of  Eome,  although 
he  is  full  of  the  woods  and  cascades  of  Tivoli :  from  which  I 
argue  that  the  ancient  eye  for  scenery  was  not  nearly  equal  to 
the  modern. 

One  is  amused  with  the  pedigrees  of  things  one  sees.  The 
bronze  columns  of  the  Altar  of  the  H.  S.  in  the  Lateran  were 
taken  from  the  temple  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter;  but  the 
descent  does  not  stop  here — the  Capitoline  Jupiter  took  them 
from  the  beaks  of  the  ships  taken  in  the  battle  of  Actium. 
The  font  in  St.  Peter's  was  Adrian's  sarcophagus.  The  Popes 
take  the  old  Eoman  Emperors'  sarcophagi  for  their  own. 
There  is  a  system  of  accommodation  and  transference. 

There  is  no  wish  anions;  the  English  to  see  the  Sardinian 
Parliament  here,  and  certainly,  as  a  tourist,  I  cannot  but  feel 
some  sympathy  with  old  Eome,  classical  and  mediaeval,  which 
would  be  somewhat  damaged  by  converting  it  into  a  modern 
capital  with  all  its  new  offices,  legislative  chambers,  new  Court, 
etc. — in  a  word,  making  it  a  modern  business  place.  There  is  a 
great  deal  to  be  said  for  Florence  continuing  the  Italian  capital 
even  if  the  Papal  State  became  absorbed  in  the  Italian  kingdom. 
.  .  .  We  just  drove  through  the  Ghetto,  and  made  acquaintance 
with  the  features  of  the  ancient  colony,  the  very  same  identical 
one  which  St.  Paul  addressed  in  the  Acts.  In  driving  through 
the  Piazza  Navona — the  large  market — the  man  pointed  with 
his  whip  to  the  line  of  pavement  which  separated  the  Christian 
stalls  from  the  Jewish — Qui  Christiani  la  Ebrei.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Sorrento,  May  8,  1866. 
My  dear  Anne, — Among  the  many  things  I  have  imagined 
myself  seeing,  I  do  not  remember  myself  ever  expecting  to 
be  a  spectator  of  the  miracle  of  St.  Januarius.    Certainly  it 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mosley,  D.D. 


was  not  a  scene  to  confirm  belief  in  miracles  in  any  one  who 
was  shaky.  It  was  difficult  to  make  out  at  all  accurately  what 
sort  of  belief  the  religious  section  of  the  community  have  in  it. 
Of  course  the  world  at  large  at  Naples,  as  elsewhere,  laugh 
at  it.  The  procession  was  attacked  by  the  students  last  year 
in  the  streets,  so  it  walks  now  with  an  escort  of  bayonets. 
Bayonets  stand  on  each  side  of  the  Altar,  bayonets  on  each  side 
of  the  Church  door.  The  Sardinian  Government,  on  principle, 
protects  popular  Festivals.  People  may  think  what  they  like, 
but  they  must  not  assault.  This  is  fair.  But  to  speak  of  the 
religious, — priests  and  good  Catholics, — who  were  there.  This 
was  the  most  curious  part  of  the  scene.  I  suppose  they  would 
not  acknowledge  the  thing  not  to  be  a  reality.  Yet  the  fact 
was  they — even  the  religious — except  for  that  interval,  when 
everybody  was  struggling  up  the  Altar  steps  to  see  the  blood 
after  the  great  event — they  were  all  talking,  laughing,  handing 
their  snuff-boxes,  and  enjoying  the  scene,  like  any  crowd  or  fair. 
One  ecclesiastic  of  rank,  a  remarkably  intelligent-looking  man, 
showed,  we  thought,  some  signs  of  suppressed  disgust.  He 
came  in  and  sat  in  a  large  velvet  arm-chair,  in  his  undress  garb, 
within  the  Altar-rails,  some  time  before  the  entrance  of  the  pro- 
cession, waiting  to  receive  it ;  during  which  time  he  was  con- 
versing with  a  number  of  people,  laymen  among  the  rest  (it 
seemed  to  me)  about  general  subjects.  We  admired  his  good 
address  and  grace  of  manner.  At  the  first  entrance  of  the  pro- 
cession his  attendants  robed  him  with  marvellous  rapidity ; 
it  was  the  work  of  a  moment,  and  he  was  at  his  place  incensing 
the  images  as  they  passed  before  the  Altar.  It  was  evident  that 
they  none  of  them  in  the  slightest  degree  realised  what  a 
miracle  was.  It  was  old  custom  ;  it  was  called  a  miracle ;  it  had 
the  sanction  of  the  Church.  Beyond  that  nobody's  mind  went. 
I  heard  a  French  priest  arguing  with  two  sceptics  about  it,  one 
of  them  a  Yankee.  He  professed  to  be  candid,  but  said  he  could 
not  account  for  it.  The  fact  was  so.  His  opponents  said  the 
question  was  not  about  the  fact  but  the  cause ;  some  heat  was 
applied.  He  replied  it  was  only  just  touched  by  two  fingers. 
They  replied,  of  course,  it  was  chemical  heat  they  meant.  He  did 
not  continue  the  discussion.    All  this  was  close  to  the  momen- 


28o 


Letters  of  the 


tous  vessel  itself.  The  whole  scene  was  a  sort  of  miniature 
copy  of  the  Greek  fire  at  Jerusalem.  It  was  a  general  miUc 
within  the  Altar-rails — priests,  laymen,  soldiers,  ladies,  all  talk- 
ing and  chatting.  I  was  in  the  thick  of  them  within  the  altar- 
rails.  There  was  a  prayer  chanted  for  the  performance  of  the 
miracle  by  an  old  priest,  who,  after  he  had  closed  his  book,  was 
immediately  shoved  down  the  steps  by  the  eager  crowd  pressing 
up  close  to  see  the  wonder  take  place.  Some  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  elapsed,  during  which  everybody  was  talking,  the 
amusement  being  only  heightened  by  the  hoarse  cries  of  the 
old  women — the  relations  of  St.  Januarius,  who  sat  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Altar. 

These  extraordinary  weird-looking  old  creatures  from  time  to 
time  broke  forth  with  their  noises,  which  had  much  the  effect  of 
a  startled  rookery ;  Amelia  said  it  was  like  frogs.  Yet,  when 
the  sound  of  the  bell  announced  the  event  of  the  liquefaction, 
I  observed  some  young  priests,  either  really,  or  because  they 
thought  it  the  proper  thing,  expressing  a  momentary  fervent 
excitement,  as  if  something  really  had  happened.  I  did  not 
press  up  to  the  Altar  at  first,  but  after  some  time  I  found  my 
way  up,  when  I  was  told  that  the  blood  had  retired,  but  would 
come  back  again  soon ;  and  I  had  hardly  to  wait  a  moment 
when  the  points  of  the  bayonets  announced  its  approach,  and 
an  old  priest  came  struggling  up  the  steps,  through  the  crowd. 
He  then  turned  the  glass  case,  containing  the  sacred  phial  or 
phials,  round  and  round,  with  a  candle  before,  and,  as  I  was 
close  to,  I  must  certainly  admit  that  liquid  was  inside. 

Yet  there  were  points  of  time  at  which  the  ceremonial  was 
extraordinarily  picturesque,  if  not  imposing:  when  the  pro- 
cession, on  its  first  entrance — priests,  friars  of  different  orders, 
and  the  figures  of  the  saints  (they  call  them  silver)  borne  aloft 
on  shoulders,  moved  round  and  round  the  Church,  with  banners 
and  canopies  ;  every  figure  being  saluted  by  the  venerable  rela- 
tions of  St.  Januarius,  in  their  peculiar  way.  All  this,  with  the 
gorgeous  gilding  and  magnificent  marbles  of  the  church  itself, 
composed  a  rich  and  rather  grand  mixture.  The  old  women 
were  certainly  an  immense  addition.  One  was  amused  with 
the  respect  paid  to  heretics.    We  were  the  great  persons  in  the 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


281 


scene,  everybody  giving  way  to  us,  and  people  on  all  sides  being 
anxious  to  explain  everything  to  us. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  Naples.  We  were  unfortunate  in 
having  our  first  view  under  a  Sirocco.  On  the  land  side,  however 
— which  was  the  way  we  came — the  vast  rich  luxuriant  plain, 
out  of  which  Vesuvius  rises,  was  very  striking ;  and  Vesuvius 
itself  was  clear.  It  is  a  most  beautiful  and  majestic  mountain, 
and  it  has  the  extraordinary  advantage  of  rising  up  in  an 
immense  plain  on  both  sides — for  the  sea  is  its  basement  on 
the  other  side.  Tourist  expectations  of  lounging,  resting 
weeks,  are  disappointments.  We  had  made  up  our  minds 
for  an  open-air  holiday  at  Naples,  but  the  museum,  Pompeii, 
and,  in  my  case,  the  Castle  St.  Elmo,  provided  work  for  us. 
I  obtained  an  order  to  see  the  dungeons  of  the  latter,  and 
can  testify,  with  sufficient  certainty,  that  they  are  horrible 
places.  The  outer  circumference  of  the  rock  is  galleried  for 
cannon ;  the  inner  heart  is  hollowed  out  into  caves  and  cells 
for  prisoners.  I  was  shown  what  they  told  me  was  Poerio's 
prison.  If  I  remember  right,  Sir  G.  Bowyer,  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  The  Times,  asserted  it  was  such  an  agreeable  roomy 
apartment,  with  such  a  delightful  view  from  it,  that  he  should 
have  selected  it  for  his  holiday  season.  Certainly  it  is  roomy — 
a  lofty  large  hollow  in  the  rock ;  but  when  one  has  said  this,  one 
has  said  all  that  can  be  said  in  its  favour.  It  is  aired  and  lighted 
by  a  grating  at  the  top  of  the  roof,  and,  with  that  exception,  is 
without  communication  with  the  exterior,  and  that  is  not  the 
actual  outer  air.  One  or  two  cells,  I  observed,  were  lighted  by 
small  openings  at  the  very  top  of  their  walls,  to  the  outer  air. 
On  the  whole,  they  are  utterly  barbarous  places,  and  one  is 
astonished  when  one  sees  them,  that  a  European  Government 
should  actually  have  used  them  only  half-a-dozen  years  ago. 
You  would  suppose  their  most  recent  use  must  have  been  in  the 
thirteenth  or  fourteenth  centuries.  .  .  .  There  was  a  paragraph 
in  the  Naples  English  paper,  stating,  to  illustrate  the  extra- 
ordinary political  excitement  now  in  the  place,  that  nobody's 
pocket  had  been  picked  for  two  days.  The  furor  had  been  too 
absorbing  to  admit  of  attention  to  baser  things.  The  English 
banker  Mr.  Turner,  who  seemed  a  shrewd  old  gentleman,  told 


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Letters  of  the 


me  it  was  thought  that,  though  the  government  humoured  the 
popular  excitement  to  a  certain  extent,  there  was  an  understand- 
ing at  bottom  there  would  be  no  war. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Rome,  May  19,  1866. 
.  .  .  We  have  been  to  some  May  sermons  here.  There  is 
one  every  evening  in  a  church  in  the  Corso,  close  by,  followed 
by  a  function  and  very  beautiful  Italian  music.  The  sermons 
are  simply  declamatory  and  perfectly  empty,  but  excellently 
pronounced  in  good  Italian.  I  speak,  of  course,  from  Amelia's 
and  Janet's  report.  I  myself  could  only  catch  a  half  sentence 
every  now  and  then.  There  is  a  studied  elaborateness  of  pro- 
nunciation, to  produce  perfect  clearness.  The  preacher  walks 
up  and  down  a  small  stage ;  sometimes  sits  down,  and  talks  in 
an  easy  way  with  his  audience.  When  the  emotional  part  of 
the  discourse  begins,  and  the  congregation  are  to  be  warmed 
into  devotion  to  the  Virgin,  the  preacher's  voice  suddenly 
bursts  into  a  succession  of  high  pitched  sobbing  utterances,  as 
if  he  was  almost  choked  with  emotion,  not  forgetting,  however, 
the  pinch  of  snuff  he  is  holding  between  his  finger  and 
thumb,  which  he  takes  in  the  intervals  of  his  agitation.  Or  his 
voice  adopts  a  coaxing  affectionate  whine.  After  this  the 
congregation  kneels  and  repeats  some  short  prayers  to  the 
Virgin.  Then  commences  the  hymn,  which  goes  through  a  long 
succession  of  stanzas,  and  is  beautifully  sung  by  trained  voices 
in  the  organ  loft,  the  congregation  joining  in  a  short  chorus  at 
the  end  of  each  verse.  In  the  sermon  we  heard  yesterday  there 
was  nothing  about  the  Virgin  till  the  very  last.  The  subject 
of  the  discourse  was  the  "  Omnipresence  of  God."  I  saw 
nothing  like  real  interest  or  absorption  in  the  congregation. 
They  listened  quietly,  but,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  with  some  in- 
difference. I  should  observe  that  the  emotion  of  both  preachers 
was  exactly  alike,  the  sobs  and  everything.  I  do  not  know 
whether  they  are  taught  to  preach,  like  our  dissenters,  and 
have  to  exercise  before  masters  in  classes,  but  the  effect  was 
rather  like  it. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozky,  D.D. 


283 


Throughout  the  whole  of  1866  my  mother's  strength  was 
failing.  On  his  return  to  Shoreham,  J.  B.  M.  receives  anxious 
accounts  of  her  state. 

TO  HIS  SlSTER. 

Shoreham,  June  8,  1866. 
I  do  not  know  what  to  think  of  my  mother's  state.  There  is 
a  fall  now  both  in  yours  and  Fanny's  estimate  of  her  strength. 
.  .  .  But  even  weakness  as  a  symptom  is  uncertain,  for  old 
people  may  get  very  weak  without  vital  danger.  As  I  was 
sitting  in  the  Salle  de  Lecture,  at  the  Hotel  Mirabeau,  there 
came  in  a  very  old  man  in  black,  just  able  to  put  one  leg  before 
the  other,  with  short  steps  like  a  child.  He  seated  himself 
with  great  difficulty  in  his  chair,  feeling  his  way  down  in  his 
seat  every  inch  as  he  settled  himself.  He  then  put  out  a 
trembling  arm,  and  got  hold  of  a  newspaper.  That  done,  I  saw 
that  he  worked  away  pretty  well  and  got  what  he  wanted. 
Then  all  at  once  I  said  to  myself,  I  think  I  know  you — you 
are  Lord  Brougham.  But  he  was  much  altered,  even  from  two 
years  back,  when  I  saw  him  at  Ardingley  laying  the  first  stone 
of  Woodard's  School.  Yet  the  manager  of  the  Mirabeau,  who 
talked  to  us  about  him,  described  him  as  still  with  an  inner 
strength  in  him, — excessively  irritable,  jealous  of  all  attempts  to 
control  him.  He  found  himself  in  bed  at  half-past  eleven  one 
night,  and  was  furious  with  his  valet  and  everybody.  Did  they 
think  him  a  child  ?  He  dined  at  the  table-d'lwte  every  day. 
Though  so  muscularly  weak,  he  has  that  sort  of  strength  which 
enables  him  to  travel,  and  had  come  up  from  Cannes  to  Paris 
in  one  day.  I  mention  this  to  show  that  weakness  wants 
defining — the  sort  of  it — before  it  becomes  alarming. 

After  this  letter  he  paid  a  visit  to  Derby — a  visit  which  was 
a  great  pleasure  and  comfort  to  my  mother. 

Writing  to  Mr.  Church,  he  enters  upon  a  great  question 
touched  on  in  a  paper  he  (Mr.  Church)  had  lately  written  : — 


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Letters  of  the 


To  the  Eev.  R.  W.  Church. 

June  7,  1866. 

.  .  .  Your  remarks  upon  revelation,  I  think,  hit  the  nail  on 
the  head.  One  feels  that  a  religion,  such  as  some  would  give 
us,  which  is  a  growth  of  the  human  mind,  and  a  revelation,  or 
religion  in  its  true  sense,  are  two  totally  different  things,  and 
that  one  cannot  do  what  the  other  does,  and  has  done.  It  is 
the  idea,  the  belief  that  it  is  a  revelation,  which  commands 
and  inspires  the  human  mind.  People  will  not  respect  their 
own  creation  of  religion  ;  and  it  is  mere  folly  to  think  that  they 
will  let  it  command  and  coerce  them — or  rather  I  should  say  a 
mere  dream — for  some  do  seem  to  think  this  whom  one  cannot 
call  altogether  foolish  men.  It  is  this  essential  difference  in 
the  two  ideas  which  people  pass  over.  As  you  say,  such  a 
growth  cannot  be  a  religion.  The  obscure  rays  of  the  spectrum 
is  just  the  illustration  I  should  have  liked  to  have  when  I  was 
writing. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  August  20,  1866. 

I  think  our  events  since  our  Derby  visit  have  been  almost 
confined  to  a  visit  from  Church.  We  took  him  to  Arundel  and 
Petworth.  The  Petworth  gallery  was  quite  in  his  way,  and  as 
it  really  is  a  fine  collection  one  knew  he  was  not  wasting  time 
in  seeing  it ;  and  that  it  was  worth  a  headache  which,  with 
some  satisfaction,  he  announced  having  received  from  it,  feeling 
that  he  had  done  something.  .  .  . 

We  talked  over  Eccc  Homo;  he  reports  that  Jowett,  etc.,  do  not 
like  it,  though  whether  this  dislike  proceeds  from  opposition  or 
rivalry  is  not  clear.  As  there  is  something  fresh  in  old-fashioned 
thought  now,  I  have  been  reading  the  life  of  Scott — Bible  Scott. 
I  am  wonderfully  struck  with  the  extraordinary  energy  and  strong- 
sense  of  the  man,  joined  to  his  enthusiasm  and  disinterestedness. 
His  discrimination  and  power  of  drawing  proper  distinctions, 
and  of  separating  secondary  from  fundamental  matter  are  very 
striking.  Though  a  Predestinarian  himself,  he  always  insisted 
on  its  being  a  secondary  point,  on  which  people  might  differ 
without  the  least  drawback.   This  moderation  on  a  point  which, 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


285 


where  people  do  hold  it,  they  think  so  very  critical  and  testing, 
is  a  strong  sign  of  his  halance  of  mind.  He  seems  to  have 
spent  a  considerable  part  of  the  force  of  his  mind  in  keeping 
doctrinal  ultraism  down  in  his  own  party,  and  it  appears  that 
the  Bible  Commentary  was  originally  undertaken  principally 
with  that  aim.  Though,  on  minor  points  of  social  practice, 
rigid  and  somewhat  narrow,  his  strong  sensibleness  on  substantial 
points  comes  out.  All  this,  with  his  great  sharpness,  immediate 
perception  of  humbug,  shrewdness,  and  remarkable  working 
power, make  him  certainly  a  great  man.  He  has  a  perfect  voracity 
for  work,  which  in  one  of  his  letters  he  rather  subtilely  analyses 
and  excuses.  He  says  he  does  a  great  part  of  his  work  with  the 
spirit  exactly  of  self-satisfaction  in  it  which  a  journeyman 
carpenter  or  bricklayer  has.  The  thorough  honesty  of  the  man 
is  so  taking.  He  has  a  great  appreciation  of  knowledge — various 
knowledge,  and  only  restricted  his  own  reading  from  a  con- 
scientious principle.  But  he  was  obviously,  in  his  own  tastes 
and  inclination,  omnivorous  and  wanting  to  know  everything. 
Some  of  his  letters,  I  think,  show  much  more  acuteness,  analysis 
of  human  nature  and  motives,  and  such  matter — akin  to  the 
intellectual  power  of  the  present  day — than  you  would  expect. 
His  perpetual  work  was  against  this  coming  out  in  his  published 
writings.  Had  he  been  a  more  idle  man  he  would  have  been 
more  original,  for  he  had  this  latter  element  in  him.1 


To  the  Eev.  Francis  A.  Faber. 

September,  1,  1866. 
My  dear  Faber, — I  have  not,  I  think,  written  to  you  since 
our  return,  or  rather,  I  should  say,  since  a  few  hurried  lines  from 
Borne,  and  now  I  hardly  know  how  to  begin  a  descriptive 
epistle.  I  must  defer  an  account  of  our  impressions  till  some 
opportunity  occurs  of  a  passing  visit  to  Saunderton.  Are  not 
tourist  epistles,  by  the  way,  out  of  date  now? — and  tourist 
conversation  too  ?    It  seems  to  me  everybody  travels  at  such  a 

1  The  reader  may  remember  the  tribute  to  Thomas  Scott  in  the  Apologia, 
and  the  deep  impression  his  character  and  writings  made  on  its  author  in 
his  early  youth. 


286 


Letters  of  the 


rate  that  travelling  has  become  nothing,  and  all  descriptions  are 
become  refuse  articles.  It  is  amusing,  if  people  meet  who  have 
common  travelling  ground — cities,  countries,  nay  continents,  to 
see  to  what  very  small  matters  of  fact,  and  bits  of  information , 
their  whole  communication  is  reduced,  so  that,  after  a  tour  is 
over,  the  tangible  residuum  seems  nothing.  One  is  aware  of 
going  through  a  certain  experience,  having  been  knocked  about 
a  little,  tried  one's  eyes  and  one's  legs — for  nothing  is  so  weary- 
ing to  the  latter  as  the  hours  of  standing  in  the  galleries — 
and  of  having  acquired  a  certain  facility  in  turning  over  Murray, 
and  then  there  is  little  more  that  remains.  Some  great  sights, 
however,  are  stamped  on  the  mind's  eye.  We  got  to  Psestum, 
which  was  our  farthest  point.  The  great  temple  there  is  one 
of  the  grand  buildings  of  the  world,  and  should  rank  with  St. 
Peter's,  the  Colosseum,  St.  Paul's,  etc.  I  did  not  think  before- 
hand such  an  effect  could  have  been  produced  by  simple  Greek 
architecture  before  the  Arch.  .  .  . 

Among  sights  I  must  not  omit  Pio  Nono.  I  must  modify, 
however,  the  melancholy  sentiment  which  attaches  to  him. 
I  believe  he  enjoys  himself  immensely,  and  likes  being  Pope. 
I  see  it  in  his  face.  He  is  as  happy  as  possible.  He  has 
lived  in  threatening  times,  but  they  told  me  he  was  by  natural 
constitution  not  sensitive,  but  took  things  easy.  Then  the 
triple  crown  is  another  sight.  It  did  not  look  so  awful  as  we 
expected ;  on  the  contrary,  if  there  is  any  epithet  I  should  apply 
to  it,  I  should  say  it  was  pretty ;  the  jewelled  brightness  makes 
it  look  quite  white.    You  remember  it,  I  daresay.  .  .  . 

The  grandeur  of  the  streets  of  palaces  has  almost  excited  my 
curiosity  about  the  Genoese  families.  You  know  it  is  Stanley's 
principle — the  aid  of  sight  to  history.  There  is  a  great  deal  in 
it.  After  one  has  seen  a  place,  one  wants  to  know  about  the 
people.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

October,  1866. 

Mr.  Wilkinson's  paper  is  a  very  clear  exposure  of  the  audacious 
exegesis  of  Eccc  Homo.    It  is  only  too  short,  and  one  arrives  at 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


287 


the  end  of  it  before  one  wants.  I  see  the  notice  in  the  Contem- 
porary is  deprecatory,  but  does  not  deny  the  justice  of  the 
criticism  upon  such  interpretation  of  Scripture.  The  unfair 
limitation  in  the  area  of  the  book  and  the  range  of  facts  which 
it  takes  cognisance  of  is  very  compactly  stated. 

I  have  been  reading  Le  Maudit.  It  lets  one  into  a  new 
department  of  life  and  facts  altogether,  and  I  think  something- 
may  be  got  out  of  it,  though  one  does  not  go  along  always  with 
the  author,  and  has  some  doubt  as  to  what  his  improved 
Catholicism  is.  His  glorification  of  Paris,  too,  is  fanatical. — 
Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

The  Tablet  having  quoted  with  commendation  a  passage 
from  Father  Faber's  posthumous  works,  in  which  he  makes 
a  remarkable  assertion  about  the  Archangel  Michael,  J.  B.  M. 
writes  : — 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  October  30,  1866. 

Faber  is  certainly  very  amusing.  ...  I  may  use  that  term 
because  his  spiritual  world  is  so  completely  a  region  of  his  own 
invention  that  one  ceases  to  connect  it  with  serious  subjects. 
The  decision  of  a  controversy  by  a  fact  about  St.  Michael, 
hitherto  unknown,  but  assumed  as  an  undoubted  celestial  fact 
because  his  pen  knocked  it  off  with  perfect  ease,  is  quite  a 
specimen  of  Faber's  reasoning.  .  .  . 

I  have  been  reading  Felix  Holt.  With  all  his  honesty  and 
artisan  grandeur  there  is  an  odiousness  about  him  which  made 
me  at  his  trial  long  for  his  transportation,  and  sorry  when  he 
escaped  that  peril.  There  is  a  want  of  reality  about  the  char- 
acter, however,  which  prevents  one  from  treating  him  wholly 
as  an  actual  person.  He  is  the  impersonation  of  ideas.  Harold 
is  a  capital  character,  thoroughly  natural. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Bev.  K.  W.  Church. 

December,  1866. 
I  have  written  to  Pusey.    It  appeared  to  me  that  somebody 
ought  to  call  his  attention  to  the  real  ground  taken  in  that 


288 


Letters  of  the 


affair  in  The  Guardian.  Though  I  was  far  from  the  best  person 
to  do  it,  if  it  was  to  be  done  it  had  better  not  be  delayed.  I 
always  feel,  with  respect  to  Pusey,  that  he  does  not  make 
account  of  that  necessary  modification  of  relations  which  is 
occasioned  by  advance  of  years.  This  is  a  consideration  over 
and  above  any  particular  ground  one  has  adopted  which  he 
may  disapprove. 

So  M.  has  Brightstone.  It  is  a  beautiful  parsonage — at  least 
as  seen  surmounting  the  churchyard  wall ;  quite  a  model  of 
the  old  creeper-covered  combination  of  rusticity  with  refine- 
ment, whence  issued,  some  thirty  years  ago,  S.  O.  to  the  battle 
of  life.  What  a  brilliant  storm  out  of  what  a  haven  ! — but 
the  former  suited  him  better.  .  .  . 

I  was  glad  to  see  TJie  Guardian  taking  up  the  alteration  in 
the  Christian  Year,  and  bringing  out  the  weak  point  in  the 
case  of  the  alteration — that  there  was  only  an  intention,  not  an 
act,  of  change  on  the  part  of  the  author.  It  seems  to  me  a  real 
distinction. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  November  James  Mozley  and  his  wife  paid  another  visit 
to  his  mother.  It  interested  and  revived  her.  The  beginning 
of  December  he  returned  to  Shoreham :  receiving  constant 
reports  till  the  end. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  December  26,  1866. 
We  like  much  to  hear  all  that  there  is  to  say,  though  the  very 
slow  steps  must  make  it  difficult  for  you  to  observe  and  see 
the  differences  which  really  take  place  from  day  to  day.  I 
quite  understand  the  sort  of  dreamy  watching  that  must  go  on. 
To  me  who  am  absent,  there  is  not  of  course  this  watching. 
The  effect  of  it  upon  my  mind  I  find  rather  to  be  an  immense 
vista  of  the  past,  which  is  always  either  before  me  or  close  to 
me.  At  the  approach  of  a  great  end  and  close,  the  past  comes 
out  as  the  past ;  it  is  separate  from  the  present.  It  is  a  long 
reach,  such  a  life,  and  goes  back  into  such — to  one's  own 
imagination — early  and  primitive  times.    On  looking  acciden- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


289 


tally  at  the  title-page  of  Mr.  Wayland's  sermons,  and  seeing  the 
date  on  it  1816,  it  came  with  a  sort  of  surprise  on  me  that  my 
mother  had  then  been  sixteen  years  a  married  woman.  And  yet, 
compared  with  books  of  the  day,  the  volume — its  paper,  print, 
and  everything — looked  quite  an  antiquity. 

Do  you  remember  the  sermon  on  "  The  Greatness  and  Little- 
ness of  Human  Life,"  in  J.  H.  N.'s  fourth  volume  ?  I  read  it  to 
Fanny  Winton1  yesterday,  who  always  expects  a  sermon  on 
Christmas-day ;  there  are  so  many  natural  points  of  view  in  the 
sermon,  and  it  meets  so  completely  the  wants  of  a  reader  who 
happens  to  have  the  subject  in  his  mind. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  January  9,  1867. 
There  is  only  one  announcement  which  we  can  expect  now, 
and  we  shall  expect  it  of  course  to-morrow.  Nothing  can  be 
more  peaceful  or  more  suitable  as  a  scene  of  closing  life  than 
that  you  describe.  I  am  very  glad  that  you  mentioned  me  to 
her  when  you  did,  and  elicited  the  notice  and  recollection  of 
me  at  such  a  time,  and  the  message,  as  I  may  call  it,  to  me. 
Ever  since  those  letters  received  from  you  about  ten  days  ago, 
which  obviously  marked  the  last  stage,  and  described  a  con- 
dition of  such  absolute  passiveness  and  quietude,  I  felt  for  her 
almost  as  a  person  out  of  the  world.  So  your  note  this  after- 
noon has  not  made  such  an  alteration  in  my  state  of  mind.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  the  sense  of  the  actual  departure  will  be  more 
forcible  in  a  little  time  than  it  is  now.  And  there  is  something  in 
the  death  of  the  aged  which  makes  it  a  more  solemn  event, 
though  more  natural  than  that  of  the  young.  I  mean  in  this 
respect,  that  it  is  the  fair  working  out  of  mortal  life.  In 
premature  deaths  there  is  an  idea  of  something  accidental — if 
this  complaint  had  not  been  caught,  if  over- work,  or  climate,  or 
something  had  not  come  in  ;  but  here  one  has  human  life  before 
one  in  its  fulness  and  completeness,  and  it  is  in  its  nature  seen 
to  be  a  transient  state.    Old  people  always  look  like  barriers 

1  A  poor  parishioner,  blind,  and  for  many  years  bedridden,  to  whom 
J.  B.  M.  and  his  wife  were  unremitting  in  care  and  spiritual  attention  to 
the  end  of  her  life. 

T 


290 


Letters  of  the 


between  the  younger  generation  and  the  end — a  sort  of  defence, 
so  to  speak.  When  they  go,  a  kind  of  protection  seems  to  be 
gone,  and  one  feels  an  alteration  in  one's  position. 

In  my  mother's  case  this  is  very  strong.  She  has  been  such 
a  centre  of  the  family,  keeping  up  its  first  and  earliest  form 
almost,  through  so  long  a  course  of  years  ;  for  the  Friary  always 
seems  to  identify  one  with  thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  It  is  very 
seldom  that  the  early  type  lasts  so  long.  In  most  families  it  is 
scattered  to  the  winds  very  soon,  and  not  a  trace  of  the  original 
is  left.  The  termination  of  such  a  state  of  things  is  a  great 
change  to  one's-self,  and  seems  in  a  way  to  make  one  a  different 
person. 

I  shall  retain  her  parting  message  to  me  as  a  solemn  and  at 
the  same  time  pleasing  recollection  throughout  my  life. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

My  mother  died  in  her  84th  year.  After  all  was  over  he 
writes : — 

To  his  Sister. 

January  10,  1867. 
My  letter  yesterday  was  so  complete  an  anticipation  of  your 
note  this  morning,  that  I  seem  to  have  already  written  what  I 
am  writing  now.  It  is  the  end  of  a  long,  remarkably  complete 
life — I  might  add  patriarchal ;  for,  having  been  the  survivor  of 
my  father  for  twenty  years,  my  mother  included  in  herself  all 
the  parental  relations.  She  was  the  sole  centre  all  this  long- 
time ;  she  was  very  fit  to  be ;  this  is  especially  the  life  of  a 
mother.  She  has  had,  one  may  say,  no  other  life,  and  it  brought 
her  out  extraordinarily  in  one  region  of  a  mother's  feeling — 
namely  pride  in  her  children.  This  was  indeed  a  great  part  of 
— if  one  may  call  it  so — her  power.  She  kept  things  together 
very  remarkably,  and  there  was  something  very  effective  about 
it.  The  feeling  was  a  real  influence.  It  is  a  great  gift  to 
people  to  be  able  to  be  proud  of  persons  who  are  not  them- 
selves. It  necessarily  gives  a  parent  great  hold  over  her 
children.  Of  course  all  good  mothers  have  it,  but  I  think  it 
was  more  of  a  strong  principle  in  my  mother,  and  had  far  more 
force  and  vigour  than  it  has  in  the  minds  of  most  mothers. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


291 


It  was  remarkable  that  tins  feeling  was  not  accompanied  by 
any  of  the  common  worldly  aims  for  her  children.  She  never 
seemed  to  have  advancement  in  life,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  in 
her  view.  Nor  did  her  own  increasing  years — nor,  I  must  add, 
those  of  her  sons — ever  put  the  idea  into  her  head.  She  was 
faithful  to  her  own  just,  simple  ideas  on  the  subject  to  the  very 
last. 

That  she  should  have  lived  to  see  the  University  careers  of 
her  grandsons  was  very  happy  for  her.  It  gave  a  brightness  to 
the  decline  of  life  ;  it  was  just  what  she  would  have  hoped  for. 
.  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

January  22,  1867. 
.  .  .  Amelia  went  to  Westminster  Abbey  on  Sunday  and 
heard  Stanley.  It  was  a  sermon  on  marriage,  taken  from  the 
Gospel  of  the  day.  He  recommended  it  strongly,  even  ear- 
nestly and  warmly,  and  Amelia  said  it  almost  amounted  to  a 
declaration  of  his  own  experience  of  the  state.  Among  other 
things,  marriage,  he  said,  was  a  shelter  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
world  and  the  tyranny  of  the  Church.  It  was  her  impression 
that  the  sermon  would  on  the  whole  do  good,  the  tendency 
being  to  induce  a  class  of  loose  hangers-on  upon  general  society 
to  take  that  step. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

This  letter  a  propos  of  Mr.  Stanley  encloses  an  extract : — 

"  Did  I  tell  you,"  writes  Mr.  Church,  "  that  Stanley  dined  at 
Bogers'  when  I  was  in  town,  full  of  talk,  chiefly  about  Borne  ? 
He  did  not  seem  to  have  seen  Antonelli ;  but  there  was  a  Mon- 
signor  Nardi,  a  man  whom  he  described  as  being,  like  the 
Bope's  face,  charming  and  saintlike  if  you  looked  from  one 
side,  and  heard  of  him  from  one  set  of  people ;  perfectly  dia- 
bolical and  malignant  if  you  looked  at  him  on  the  other,  and 
heard  what  the  other  set  thought.  He  took  off  Monsignor 
Nardi  and  his  Italian  gesticulations  and  tones  with  very  accom- 
plished action.  He  met  the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  who  told  him 
of  a  visit  he  had  from  Busey.  Busey  came  to  talk  Eivcnikon 
and  Council  of  Trent  with  him,  just  as  he  was  going  to  sit 


292 


Letters  of  the 


down  to  a  great  banquet  with  all  the  dons  and  swells  of 
Orleans ;  the  General  and  Prefect  and  Chief  Judge,  and  all 
the  rest.  He  told  Pusey  that  he  could  not  wait,  but  that  he' 
should  be  delighted  to  take  hirn  to  the  dinner ;  to  which  Pusey 
went.  '  Et  pour  me  servir  d'une  expression  monclaine,  il  y  cut 
un  tres-grand  succes,'  with  the  General,  Prefect,  and  Co." 

J.  B.  M.  to  the  Eev.  E.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  February  20, 1867. 

.  .  .  Have  you  seen  the  Bishop  of  Orleans'  pamphlet  ?  It  is 
a  fearful  exposd  of  the  French  mind.  He  quotes  right  and  left ; 
of  course  Penan  among  the  rest.  I  did  not  know  before  the 
outrageous  speculative  fanaticism  of  the  man ;  it  is  beyond 
anything.  He  gravely  suggests  the  idea  of  the  general  Resur- 
rection being  accomplished  by  physical  science.  Who  knows  ? 
— he  says.  This  seems  a  different  element  from  the  purely 
positivist  in  him.  .  .  . 

Poor  Lady  Jersey's  death  was  an  interesting  one  to  my 
neighbour  Townsend.  He  and  she  were  great  friends  once.  I 
say  interesting  rather  than  melancholy,  for  he  has  passed  the 
latter  sort  of  impression.  She  was  very  fond  of  talking  litera- 
ture and  poetry  with  him,  and  he  went  often  to  Middleton. 
She  was  very  skilful  in  bringing  out  persons,  and  threw  herself 
into  what  they  said.  But  he  said  you  could  not  help  being 
uncomfortable  rather,  and  saying  to  yourself,  What  is  all  this 
about  ? — why  does  she  want  you  to  talk  ?  It  was  a  problem 
that  sat  upon  you  all  the  time.  Of  course,  she  made  use  of 
Townsend's  critical  results,  and  retailed  them  in  the  next 
party  as  her  own,  being  clever  enough  for  anything.  She 
aspired  to  the  character  of  patroness  of  clever  men,  but  I  dare 
say  there  mingled  some  real  pleasure  in  talking  with  a  genuine 
mind,  which  people  may  admire  on  the  outside,  choosing  the 
artificial  line  for  themselves.  He  says  she  was  artificial  with 
all  her  grace.  I  suppose  it  was  the  fault  of  the  George  the 
Fourth  epoch — the  finest  gentleman  in  Europe. 

Writing  shortly  after  : — 

I  have  written  to  W.  Palmer  to  prepare  him  for  Sir  J. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


293 


Colvile  calling  on  him.  I  think  they  will  be  both  pleased 
and  amused  with  him.  It  must  be  confessed  he  insists  on 
considerable  continuity  of  attention,  and  does  not  encourage 
wandering  thoughts.  I  heard  from  Frank  Faber  that  he 
(W.  Palmer)  had  been  proposing  to  translate  Newman's  recent 
letter  into  Italian,  but  had  been  stopped  by  the  Jesuits,  at 
which  he  was  irate  and  gave  that  body  a  lick  with  the  rough 
side  of  his  tongue. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

ShOKEHAM,  March  9,  1867. 
My  dear  Church, — What  an  extraordinary  state  of  the 
political  world  !  R  Palmer  certainly  comes  out  as  a  prophet ; 
he  first  uttered  the  dreadful  word,  "Household  Suffrage,"  though 
Dizzy  is  the  first  Prime  Minister  that  has.  One  sees  Glad- 
stone's tone  altered,  and  feeling  coming  out.  If  one  did  want 
to  be  the  granter  of  reforms  to  the  country,  it  must  be  trying  to 
have  the  prize  caught  just  before  one  by  Dizzy.  On  the  other 
hand,  how  Dizzy  must  enjoy  it!  But  we  must  wait.  I  hear  of 
other  moves — that  J.  H.  Newman  really  is  going  to  Oxford. 
This  comes  from  Miss  S.  There  have  been  so  many  oscillations 
in  rumour,  but  this  does  sound  rather  authentic.  Will  Newman, 
under  Coleridge's  bill,  really  resume  his  M.A.  and  vote  in 
Congregation  ?  What  a  ghost  to  rise  up  before  the  old  Heads 
— as  many  as  survive !  I  have  a  pamphlet  on  the  Colonial 
Church  question  on  the  stocks.  It  looks  at  it  mainly  in  one 
point  of  view,  viz.,  as  connected  with  the  Inspiration  question  ; 
but  I  do  not  go  into  that  question. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

The  Eev.  E.  W.  Church  to  J.  B.  M. 

Whatley  Rectory,  June  6,  1867. 
Dear  Mozley, — Will  you  notice  Tyndall  ?  He  seems  to  me 
to  lay  himself  open ;  and  the  Pall  Mall  comment  on  "  un- 
scientific criticism "  equally.  Just  as  if  one  mind  is  not  as 
good  as  another,  on  the  reasonableness  and  use  of  miracles, 
whether  familiar  or  not  with  the  laws  of  nature.  And  really 
Tyndall  seems  incapable  of  apprehending  what  the  argument 
he  attacks  really  is.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,        E.  W.  C. 


294 


Letters  of  the 


To  the  Eev.  R  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  June  8,  1867. 
My  dear  Church, — I  am  not  thinking  of  answering  Tyndall, 
but  the  article  certainly  appeared  to  me  to  lay  itself  open  on 
the  point  you  mention.  It  seems  to  make  such  a  claim  to  an 
esoteric  infallibility  in  scientific  men,  and  to  put  the  thing  on 
the  ground  of  faith  with  regard  to  other  men ;  "  Your  reason- 
ing is  nonsense  ;  you  know  nothing  about  it ;  you  must  believe 
us."  Indeed,  the  esoteric  intuition  he  claims  for  men  of 
science  appears  to  be  even  in  them  a  land  of  faith.  They 
despise  reasoning.  The  "  unscientific  criticism  "  hits  the  nail  on 
the  head,  as  a  phrase — all  the  better,  of  course,  for  witnessing 
as  a  phrase  to  its  own  Liberal  origin.  ...  T.  is  a  friend  of 
Beresford  Hope,  who,  I  suppose,  is  one  of  the  "  loving,  candid," 
religious  men  whom  he  admires.  There  is  a  kind  of  genial 
tone  in  his  writing  which  is  amusing  and  rather  attractive. 
He  walks  in  Bedgebury  Park  during  the  hours  of  service  on  the 
Sundays,  announcing  to  the  company  that  that  is  his  mode  of 
worshipping  the  Author  of  Mature. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  December  4,  1867. 
I  suppose  you  are  all  of  you  congratulating  yourselves  on 
your  new  bishop.  I  must  own  myself  to  a  certain  tinge  of 
regret  that  the  Bishop  of  New  Zealand  should  alter  his  name. 
It  is  a  great  name  gone.  Lichfield  is  a  different  thing.  It 
rather  divides  the  unity  of  his  life  and  destroys  the  whole  there 
was  before.  To  the  disbelievers  in  romance  it  is  the  sort  of  issue 
which  tends  to  confirm  their  own  standard,  although  this  would 
not  be  quite  fair,  as  certainly  the  great  proportion  of  his  life 
has  been  a  romantic  one.  It  is  a  pity,  too,  as  far  as  it  goes,  to 
bring  him  into  the  party  struggles  of  the  Church  at  home,  when 
his  was  almost  a  universal  name  as  Bishop  of  New  Zealand. 
However,  your  diocese  will  benefit  by  the  loss  of  the  Colonial 
Church. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


295 


The  letter  goes  on  to  give  his  first  impressions  of  a  visitor 
who,  to  those  who  knew  him,  was  one  of  the  influences  of  their 
lives — Mr.  Bose,  Eector  of  Weybridge,  and  uncle  of  Edith  Price, 
to  whom  our  nephew  John  Eickards  Mozley  was  engaged. 

We  were  much  flattered  by  Mr.  Eose's  kind  account  of  his 
call  here.  It  was  a  very  pleasant  one  to  us.  He  is  evidently  a 
man  who  keeps  his  eye  open  to  everything  that  is  going  on, 
and  he  expresses  himself  easily  and  compactly,  and  introduces 
an  agreeable  succession  of  subjects,  giving  variety  and  liveliness 
to  the  conversation.  It  is  the  opposite  character  to  what  I 
have  observed  in  some,  who  go  on  upon  the  first  point  that 
happens  to  start,  and  exhaust  it  in  lesser  and  lesser  remarks 
after  the  principal  ones  have  passed,  staying  on  the  same 
ground  perpetually.  He  was  much  pleased  with  J.  E.'s  Infinity 
argument  with  the  Germans  he  met  abroad  somewhere. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — This  is  my  first  direction  to  Barrow.1 

The  Eev.  E.  W.  Chuech  to  J.  B.  M. 

WHATLEY  Eectoey,  February  11,  1868. 
Dear  Mozley, — I  spent  two  or  three  days  in  London  last 
week  with  Eogers.  I  did  two  things.  I  went  over  the  Abbey 
with  Stanley,  who  was  good  enough  to  give  us  a  morning.  He 
is  a  very  good  guide,  and  has  it  all  on  his  fingers'  ends.  It  is 
certainly  a  very  impressive  place.  There  is  a  sort  of  effect  of 
being  in  a  dream,  and  meeting  all  sorts  of  strange  people,  from 
Edward  the  Confessor  to  Thackeray,  really  brought  close  to 
you  in  actual  existence,  and  yet  only  present  by  tokens  and 
signs  of  the  most  heterogeneous  kind  ;  and  we  had  a  fine  day, 
and  the  Abbey  itself  was  very  noble.  The  other  thing  was 
a  lecture  of  T.'s,  at  the  Eoyal  Institution.  It  was  said  not 
to  be  one  of  his  best ;  but  his  experiments  were  curious  and 

1  A  village  near  Derby,  on  the  banks  of  the  Trent,  where  his  eldest  and 
youngest  sister  had,  after  visits  at  Shoreham  and  elsewhere,  now  settled, 
their  two  sisters  continuing  to  live  in  Derby. 


296 


Letters  of  the 


neat,  and  uniformly  successful.  But  all  the  time  I  could  not 
help  a  kind  of  sense  of  the  inconsistency  of  the  man,  such  as 
he  appeared  to  me,  claiming  to  bring  all  truth  within  what  he 
called  science.  There  was  hard-headedness,  originality,  and 
sometimes  a  touch  of  imagination.  But  there  seemed  to  be 
also  a  hard  and  hopeless  one-sidedness,  as  if  nothing  in  the 
world  would  open  his  eyes  to  the  whole  domain  of  soul  and 
spirit  close  about  him,  and  without  which  he  would  not  be 
talking  and  devising  wonderful  experiments. — Ever  yours 
affectionately,  R  W.  C. 

To  the  Eev.  B.  W.  Church. 

SHOREHAM,  February  13,  1868. 
Dear  Church, — I  always  think  the  Abbey  wonderfully 
adapted  to  Stanley  as  an  historical  building,  but  at  the  same 
time  the  building  itself — the  interior — must  be  greatly  wasted 
on  him.  The  architecture  of  the  interior  seems  to  me  always 
extraordinarily  designed  to  excite  the  sense  of  mystery  in  the 
mind.  I  know  no  interior  in  England  equal  to  it  in  this 
respect.  But  I  should  think  that  a  sense  in  which  Stanley  was 
singularly  deficient.  The  account  of  T.  exactly  agrees  with 
the  character  of  his  writings.  There  seems  a  tendency  in 
these  men  to  place  the  material  world,  as  you  say,  in  point  of 
dignity  above  the  soul  which  finds  out  everything  about  it.  So 
it  becomes  literally  a  great  wood  and  stone  idol  which  they 
worship  ;  the  individual  seems  a  minute  insignificant  thing  in 
their  eyes. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — So  poor  Dornford  is  gone — an  old  Oriel  recollection 
more  to  me  than  to  you.    He  was  my  tutor  at  first. 

To  the  Same. 

April  9,  1868. 

I  had  a  letter  from  that  queer  fellow  Rowland  Williams  the 
other  day,  informing  me  that  he  had  devoted  the  first  day  of 
Lent  to  reading  my  Hampton  Lectures,  and  proceeded  to  make 
some  comment  on  them.    The  choice  of  the  day  was  not  com- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mosley,  D.D. 


297 


plimentary  to  the  gratifying  powers  of  the  author,  but  I  was 
glad  that  he  was  orthodox  enough  to  keep  Lent  in  his  own 
way.  How  cpiick  the  blow  has  fallen  on  the  Irish  Church  ! 
When  the  ground  has  been  long  preparing  you  seem  only  to 
have  to  strike.  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — We  meditate  starting  for  Venice  on  Monday. 

Venice,  April  28,  1868. 
My  dear  Church, — We  have  been  here  a  week  from  Milan, 
through  150  miles  of  mulberry  trees.  The  approach  by  the 
railway  is  very  striking — you  seem  to  plunge,  engines  and 
everything,  into  the  sea,  and  see  nothing  but  sea  and  lagune 
around  you  for  some  three  miles  ;  so  that  Venice  is  still  seen 
rising  out  of  the  water  as  you  approach.  I  say  this  because 
one  expected  the  approach  to  be  spoilt.  I  do  not  know  when 
you  were  here.  Travellers,  who  were  here  several  years  ago, 
pronounce  the  place  very  little  altered.  The  people  are 
evidently  cock-a-hoop  and  jolly  at  their  freedom ;  the  Piazza 
of  St.  Mark  is  full  of  a  buzzing,  smoking,  ice  and  coffee  enjoy- 
ing crowd  every  night  from  7  to  10.  Euskin's  transcendental 
description  of  the  interior  of  St.  Mark's  rather  makes  the  reality 
fall  flat.  It  wants  general  effect,  though  the  details,  tracing- 
borders,  capitals,  etc.,  are  exquisite.  It  struck  me  rather  as  a 
bronze  church — the  interior  I  mean — variegated  and  patched 
with  gilt  and  other  colours  by  the  air,  in  course  of  ages.  Euskin, 
you  know,  describes  a  perfect  vision  of  colour.  I  should  say 
St.  Peter's  was  this.  But  this  colour  is  of  that  utter  deadness 
in  St.  Mark's  that  you  have  to  extract  it  by  imagination.  I  do 
not  know  whether  this  agrees  with  your  recollection.  One 
knows  half  of  Venice  before  one  sees  it,  and  the  exterior  of 
the  Doge's  Palace  was  what  one  had  seen  it  in  prints ;  but  the 
grandeur  and  gorgeousness  of  the  interior — the  large  hall  and 
specially  the  ceilings — took  me  by  surprise.  There  is  something 
horrible,  however,  in  the  old  workman  sitting  with  all  his  tools 
about  him,  lions'-mouth,  prisons,  torturing  irons,  execution  cells, 
aperture  for  throwing  body  out  into  the  canal — all  under  one 
roof,  and  your  civilisation  sermon  occurred  to  me ;  for  certainly, 
somehow  or  other,  in  this  very  Venice,  Government  now,  and  a 


298 


Letters  of  the 


very  good  one,  seems  to  go  on  quite  spontaneously.  So  far 
from  these  frightful  methods  being  needed,  Government  has 
almost  ceased  to  be  an  art.  It  is  simply  public  opinion. 
Government  is  restoring  a  good  deal,  among  the  rest  Saint 
Donato  and  the  Fondachi  Turchi.  We  have  been  to  Torcello, 
according  to  your  recommendation.  It  is  a  wonderful  little 
voyage  through  that  archipelago  of  little  islets,  each  with  its 
campanile,  church,  or  city  some  thousand  years  old.  The  old 
Duomo  almost  carries  one  back  to  the  age  of  the  fathers ; 
indeed  one  seems  here,  generally,  to  live  in  an  earlier  stage  of 
antiquity  than  one  does  at  home — where  age  borders  on  the 
patristic  ;  is  more  than  mediaeval.  St.  Mark's  is  more  Eastern 
and  Constantinopolitan  than  Venetian.  Venetian  sentiment 
comes  out  more,  I  think,  in  the  Frari  and  San  Zampolo,  where 
the  monuments  of  the  old  Docres  are.    The  recumbent  figures 

o  o 

high  up  in  the  wall  are  a  new  fact  to  me.  The  equestrian 
statues  in  the  same  position  were  the  same. 

Florence,  May  16,  1868. 
My  dear  Church, — I  write  a  line  to  you  from  your  quondam 
home.  We  have  been  here  a  week,  having  taken  Padua, 
Vicenza,  Verona,  and  Bologna  on  our  way.  There  is  of  course 
an  enormous  deal  to  do  here,  and  one  becomes  a  perfect  chaos 
of  the  contents  of  galleries,  which  test  the  weak  framework 
of  memory  rather  severely.  One  finds  one's-self  testing  it 
by  the  photographs  in  the  windows.  The  place  is  increas- 
ing in  answer  to  the  demands  upon  it.  New  piazzas  rising 
up.  .  .  .  We  have  been  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  There 
is  a  total  absence  of  ceremonial,  and  a  man  in  an  easy 
morning-coat  sits  where  our  gowned  and  wigged  Speaker 
sits ;  so  that  our  House  compared  with  this  one  represents 
the  old  regime.  The  great  passion  of  the  Italian  public 
now  is  the  Princess  Margherita.  The  Government  is  getting 
capital  out  of  her  to  cement  the  union  of  Italy.  They  work 
her  hard ;  every  morning  at  some  public  institution,  every 
evening  at  the  Prato,  where  she  distributes  her  bows  very 
gracefully  and  cordially.  Her  deadly  pale  complexion  is 
accompanied  with  a  very  sweet  expression,  and,  though  not 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


299 


regularly  beautiful,  I  can  quite  fancy  her  charming  and 
fascinating  everybody.  For  one  who  has  to  bow  so  much  as 
she  has,  her  lively  flexible  movement  is  advantageous.  I 
observed  especially  that  she  bowed  back  so  well,  a  difficult 
tiling  to  do  elegantly,  but  very  useful  to  one  who  must  find 
herself  continually  just  catching  people  after  she  has  nearly 
driven  past  them.  They  have  sent  her  now  to  Genoa.  The 
King  [Victor  Emmanuel]  does  not  interfere  with  her,  but  keeps 
at  a  respectful  distance,  though  we  saw  him  too  on  the  Prato. 
He  is  rather  superior  to  his  common  portraits — not  quite  so 
truculent-looking. 

We  found  ourselves  the  other  day,  on  entering  a  church, 
San  Lorenzo,  assisting  at  a  Mass  for  one  of  the  Medici.  But 
whether  it  was  a  Cosmo  or  a  Lorenzo,  I  cannot  say.  The 
priests  here  are  evidently  a  snubbed  race.  One  never  by  any 
chance  sees  them  speaking  to  a  gentleman ;  always  with  each 
other,  or  with  some  common  man.  There  seem,  however, 
plenty  of  services  and  sermons.  There  is  no  appearance  any- 
where in  Italy  of  religion  having  died  away,  and  having  less 
hold  upon  the  people  than  it  has  in  other  Boman  Catholic 
countries.  Of  the  educated  Italian  Liberals,  however,  the  only 
article  of  religion  seems  to  be  Dante.  He  reigns  everywhere, 
statues  multiplying ;  and  yet  I  cannot  imagine  airy  real  ad- 
miration of  Dante  without  a  religious  belief  of  some  kind. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Shoreham,  Avgust  6,  1868. 
My  dear  Church, — You  were  lucky  in  your  two  great 
mountains.  I  only  saw  the  four  tops  of  Monte  Bosa,  like 
spikeheads  in  the  sky,  between  Lugano  and  Lucerne.  I  must 
see  the  Matterhorn  some  day,  from  your  description  of  it,  having 
a  strong  fancy  for  heights.  We  think  of  going  to  Dublin  to 
the  Congress ;  rather  a  dull  affair,  I  am  afraid,  now  that  this 
Irish  question  has  come  on : — everything  talked  of  except  the 
one  thing  people  care  about.  I  met  Neate  in  London  the 
other  day,  much  pulled  down  in  health.  He  was  much  in- 
terested in  the  approaching  Papal  Council,  anticipating  a 
dreadful  religious  breakdown  on  the  Continent,  "  the  Catholic 


300 


Letters  of  the 


form  of  Christianity  "  crushed,  and  nothing  in  its  place.  He 
complained  too  of  the  universal  "  chaff  "  which  religious  ques- 
tions had  turned  into  here :  that  he  could  get  no  other  answer 
from  people,  giving  S.  0.  a  rap  on  this  point.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  the  autumn  of  1868  James  Mozley  visited  Ireland,  and 
attended  the  Dublin  Church  Congress. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  November  21,  1868. 
Our  Irish  tour  was  both  pleasant  at  the  time,  and  is  also 
pleasant  to  look  back  upon.  It  is  a  gain  to  have  seen  some 
remarkable  men,  and  to  have  made  acquaintance  with  the  Irish. 
It  was  a  fresh  kind  of  scene  to  me,  and  an  agreeable  and 
amusing  one.  In  the  absence  of  society  here,  such  things  are 
the  natural  compensation,  and  perhaps  it  is  as  good  a  form  of 
seeing  society  as  any.  Archdeacon  Lee  was  a  most  agreeable 
acquaintance  to  make ;  a  man  of  perpetual  readiness  and 
quickness,  and  unwearied  courtesy  which  always  came  quite 
fresh  from  him,  and  had  not  the  look  of  any  straining.  It- 
was  the  more  striking  in  combination  with  a  very  learned 
character.  Then  Todd  and  Fitzgerald,  both  specimens  of  the 
student  type  not  often  equalled — Todd,  in  his  deal-furnished 
study,  surrounded  with  his  Irish  mss.  and  Irish  MS.  diction- 
aries, was  a  curious  picture  indeed  ;  himself  just  like  a  clergy- 
man of  an  engraving  a  century  and  a  half  ago  that  you  might 
turn  up  in  some  old  book.  It  must  have  been  the  most  genuine 
enthusiastic  love  which  carried  him  through  the  rough  materials 
he  had  surmounted.  His  bad  health  was  but  too  apparent, 
and  threw  a  shade  of  melancholy  over  the  scene.  Fitzgerald 
is  more  of  the  philosopher,  but  has  still  the  quiet  isolated 
stooping  air  and  figure  of  the  student,  though  joined  with  con- 
siderable ease  and  elegance  of  manner.  There  seemed  to  me  a 
deeper  vein  of  satire  in  him  than  he  liked  to  reveal  openly,  but 
one  caught  glimpses  of  it.  As  for  passing  events,  it  would  be 
very  difficult  to  disturb  him,  and  the  perfect  serenity  with  which 
he  pronounced  upon  the  certain  prospects  of  the  Irish  Church, 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


301 


though  lie  had  only  a  couple  of  months  before  made  his  strong 
speech  in  the  House  of  Lords,  showed  rather  Mr.  Wayland's 
type  of  passive  non-resistance  and  great  mastery  over  all  anxiety. 

I  must  pay  a  passing  tribute  to  the  cliffs  of  Moher — very 
grand  ;  the  finest  specimen,  taking  height,  colour,  and  confor- 
mation altogether,  of  cliff  scenery  I  ever  saw.  Kilkee  was  not 
very  striking ;  Killarney  was — the  metallic  bronze  colour  of 
the  mountains  and  their  forms  and  interconnections.  .  .  . 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  December  9,  1868. 
...  I  have  obtained  favour  in  an  unexpected  quarter, 
namely,  with  Kenelm  Digby.  He  is  such  an  old  name,  with  his 
Mores  Oatholici,  which  one  used  to  turn  over  ages  ago,  that 
one  regards  him  almost  as  an  old  friend.  I  do  not  think, 
however,  poetry,  of  which  he  has  just  published  a  volume, 
which  he  has  sent  me,  is  his  forte  ;  very  good  and  serious,  but 
in  fact,  as  poetry,  the  queerest  rigmarole  you  can  conceive. 
However,  in  a  poem  on  the  supernatural,  he  versifies  some 
passages  in  the  Bampton  Lectures.  I  need  not  say  how  eccen- 
tric a  specimen  of  the  Muse  it  is.  There  is  a  fine  old  fragrance 
however,  about  his  reputation,  and  he  is  one  of  the  learned 
names  of  the  age. 

Stanley  will  be  a  difficulty  probably  to  Gladstone  some 
day.  The  elevation  of  Tait  has,  as  a  Liberal  precedent,  cleared 
the  way  rather  for  him. — Yours  affectionately,         J.  B.  M. 

Early  in  January  1869  Mr.  Gladstone  offered  to  J.  B.  M. 
the  Canonry  of  Worcester  then  vacant.  Amongst  the  official 
letters  connected  with  the  appointment,  which  followed  on  my 
brother's  acceptance,  is  one  touching  on  the  office  and  function 
of  Canons. 

The  Bight  Hox.  W.  E.  Gladstone  to  J.  B.  M. 

Hawarden,  Jan.  17,  1869. 
My  dear  Mr.  Mozley, — When  I  had  had  time  to  receive  the 


302 


Letters  of  the 


Queen's  approval  of  your  appointment,  I  sent  you  an  intimation 
of  it ;  and  I  now  think  you  will  like  to  see  the  enclosed  letter 
from  the  Dean  of  Worcester,  which  please  to  return.  • 

Our  neighbour  Bishop  here,  the  Bishop  of  Chester1  (who  is 
not  our  Diocesan),  much  approves  of  your  appointment. 

Among  the  Canons  of  our  Cathedrals,  even,  and  perhaps 
especially  since  1840,  there  are  but  few  who  have  contributed 
or  are  likely  to  contribute  much  to  the  theological  store  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  this  day  of  her  pressing  need.  I  rejoice 
that  my  first  act  in  this  province  of  my  duty  has  been  to  pro- 
mote the  addition  to  their  number  of  one  who,  as  to  both  promise 
and  performance,  is  sufficient  sensibly  to  raise  the  average. 

You  will  be  grieved  to  hear  that  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury 
lies  almost  at  the  point  of  death.  Yesterday's  account  was  a 
trifle  better. — Believe  me,  sincerely  yours, 

W.  E.  Gladstone. 

J.  B.  M.  to  his  Brother,  T.  M. 

January  30,  1869. 
Many  thanks  for  your  congratulations.  We  go  to  Worcester 
on  Monday,  and  I  hope  to  be  installed  on  Wednesday.  The 
Dean  [Dr.  John  Peel]  has  welcomed  me  in  most  cordial  and 
agreeable  letters,  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  his  state  of  health  is 
such  that  he  will  not  be  able  to  receive  us.  .  .  .  The  greatest 
part  of  the  restoration  of  the  Cathedral  is  accomplished.  .  .  . 
The  Dean,  you  know,  is  a  most  munificent  public-spirited  man, 
and  has  been  himself  the  principal  restorer. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Rev.  K.  W.  Church. 

Worcester,  May  10,  1869. 
What  quick  business  they  have  made  of  the  Irish  Church 
Bill !  I  see  the  Bishops  have  ingeniously  hit  upon  the  ex- 
pedient of  diverting  public  attention  from  themselves  and 
transferring  it  upon  the  Deans  and  Chapters.  .  .  .  Our  Dean 
is  in  a  great  taking  about  it,  and  is  going  up,  in  spite  of  his 
gout,  to  the  meeting  at  Lambeth.    This  proposal  to  abolish  one 

'  Dr.  Jacobson. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


303 


canonry  out  of  four  in  every  cathedral,  in  order  to  found 
suffragan  bishoprics — i.e.  to  do  their  work — is  about  as  cool  a 
case  as  I  have  heard  of. 

I  have  made  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Davison,  the  repre- 
sentative, after  the  interval  of  a  generation,  of  Prophecy 
Davison.  It  is  almost  the  resuscitation  of  an  old  generation. 
She  becomes  her  associations,  has  a  venerable,  sweet  counte- 
nance, a  lively  and  quick  understanding  in  conversation,  and 
a  musical  voice.  .  .  .  She  expressed,  by  the  way,  very  quietly 
and  gently,  some  surprise  that  Judge  Coleridge  had  not  asked 
her  for  letters  of  Keble's.  I  hope  we  shall  know  more  of  her. 
We  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  Dean — certainly  a  very  accom- 
plished man,  one  of  those  artistic  talkers  of  the  old  school, 
with  great  poetical  tastes,  and  one  of  those  retentive  and  apt 
memories  which  illustrate  conversation  so  well.  We  have  had 
some  most  grotesque  old  Court  anecdotes  from  him.  He 
remembers  Christ  Church  days  of  old,  Lloyd  and  Bull,  tutors, 
etc. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Bev.  B.  W.  Church. 

May  18,  18G9. 

...  I  do  not  myself  agree  with  certain  plans  of  reforms 
for  Chapters  which  I  have  seen,  professing  to  utilise  them  by 
attaching  local  employment  to  them ;  for  example,  inspector- 
ships of  diocesan  schools,  superintendence  of  diocesan  church 
building  societies,  of  S.B.G.  and  S.B.C.K.  proceedings.  This  is 
the  sort  of  thing.  Such  schemes  would  end  in  nothing  but 
bringing  forward  a  minor  sort  of  practical  local  men  who 
like  this  sort  of  work,  and  would  lay  themselves  out  for  place 
in  this  way.  It  would,  moreover,  end  in  the  Bishops  having 
practically  all  the  canonries  in  their  gift.  Government  could 
not  appoint  local  men  of  this  sort,  except  simply  from  the 
recommendation  of  the  Bishops.  It  would  disconnect,  mean- 
while, the  cathedrals  from  the  great  stream  of  theological  and 
philosophical  thought  in  the  Church,  and  make  them  mere 
representatives  of  diocesan  boards  and  committees.  .  .  .  But 
whatever  one  may  think  of  Chapter  reform,  I  object  in  limine 


304 


Letters  of  the 


to  the  subject  being  brought  forward  in  this  sort  of  way,  merely 
as  a  tail  to  the  episcopal  question.  .  .  .  What  right  have  the 
Bishops,  at  a  time  when  public  opinion  was  quiet,  and  nothing 
stirring  against  Deans  and  Chapters,  to  get  up  a  cry  against 
them  ?  .  .  .  Everything  now  tends  to  drive  this  [the  claims  of 
learning  and  thought]  to  the  wall — to  give  everything  to  busy 
men.  A  proportion  ought  to  be  insisted  upon.  I  see  Stanley 
and  Mansel  take  this  line  ;  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  G-.  has  it 
in  his  mind  to  rectify  the  disproportion. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Rev.  R.  W.  Church. 

Worcester,  June  18,  1869. 

Your  sermon  brings  out  the  distinction  in  St.  Baul's  mind 
— wise  and  unwise — as  an  eternal  distinction  in  the  human 
race,  very  strikingly.  One  would  not  have  thought  beforehand 
that  one  needed  to  be  reminded  of  the  permanence  of  it ;  yet 
we  get  such  a  habit  of  assigning  a  meaning  for  the  day  to 
New  Testament  phrases,  that  it  is  a  surprise  to  feel  that 
exactly  the  same  persons  are  going  on  now,  and  the  same 
state  of  things.  I  don't  think  persons  realise  the  truly 
archaic  aboriginal  class  the  poor  are,  and  you  bring  the  fact 
home  to  them.  All  my  experience  is  for  the  want  of  educa- 
tion being  such  an  enormous  want.  I  confess  I  fulfil  my  rela- 
tions to  them  rather  in  the  spirit  of  a  debtor  than  that  of  an 
enthusiastic  fraterniser.  But  you  put  the  obligation  in  a  fresh 
light  to  people.  Indeed,  this  double  element  in  society  is  a 
wonderful  fact — the  pertinacious  primitiveness  that,  after  all, 
adheres  to  the  backbone  or  mass  of  the  world's  existence,  the 
intellect  being  a  mere  fragment. 

I  am  glad  you  coincide  with  my  remarks  on  Copeland  ;  there 
is  a  certain  satiety  of  the  modern  style  that  carries  one  back 
with  pleasure  to  the  old  great  men.  So  it  may  be  to  some 
extent  a  love  of  change  that  acts  on  one.  But  yet  there  is 
something  more.  The  quiet  statement  seems  to  have  more 
magnanimity  and  faith  in  it,  as  if  to  say,  This  is  our  view ; 
if  you  see  it,  so  much  the  better  for  you ;  if  you  do  not  see  it, 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  305 


we  shall  not  resort  to  violent  modes  of  persuading  you.  How- 
ever, practically  there  is  a  difference  between  admiring  people 
and  being  able  to  imitate  them.  .  .  . 

To  the  Same. 

Shokeham,  August  10, 1869. 
...  I  spent  a  day  with  Copeland,  the  end  of  last  month. 
He  goes  back  to  Nonjuring  days,  and  brought  back  vividly  to 
one  the  deep,  ancient  root  of  anti-state  principles  in  the  school 
of  the  Norris  and  Watsons  ;  and  how  curiously  this  antiquated 
current  mingles  now  with  the  great  present  rush  in  the  same 
direction.  It  reads  like  a  Sibylline  prophecy.  We  were  ex- 
ceedingly pleased  with  his  new  church ;  such  exquisite  carving 
in  the  capitals  of  the  pillars,  and  all  representing  and  doing 
justice  to  a  vast  amount  of  work  and  tasteful  consideration. 
We  are  just  settled  down  again,  having  spent  the  month  in  a 
circuit  of  family  and  other  visits.  We  were  much  pleased 
with  my  sisters'  new  home  at  Barrow. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

The  following  letter  was  written  on  the  death  of  a  College 
friend  and  early  intimate,  whose  name  has  appeared  in  these 
pages  i1 — 

To  Miss  Bridges. 

Shokeham,  August  10,  1869. 
My  dear  Miss  Bridges, — It  was  with  surprise  and  grief 
that  I  saw  the  announcement  of  your  brother's  death.  I  did 
not  know  that  he  had  been  ill.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  many 
years,  but  letters  passed  occasionally  between  us,  and  we  kept 
up  in  heart  our  old  Oxford  friendship,  though  circumstances 
had  not  favoured  our  meeting  each  other.  Indeed  it  does  not 
require  meeting  often,  to  keep  up  the  feeling  of  an  early  friend- 
ship, begun  in  under-graduate  days,  when  we  were  both  at  Oriel 
together,  and  continued  when  we  were  both  Fellows  of  Col- 
leges, residing  at  Oxford.  The  feeling  is  as  fresh  in  my  mind 
as  if  it  were  only  a  few  months  since.  He  had  a  generous, 
affectionate  mind,  which  attached  everybody  to  him,  and  there 

1  See  pp.  48,  40. 

U 


306 


Letters  of  the 


was  a  liveliness  and  freshness  in  his  views  of  things,  and  what 
came  out  of  him  in  conversation,  which  made  it  very  delightful 
to  be  with  him.  There  was  a  brightness  about  his  disposition 
and  qualities  of  mind  which  give  a  vividness  to  all  my  recollec- 
tions of  him ;  and  if  we  had  chanced  to  meet  anywhere  of 
late,  I  believe  I  should  have  met  him  as  if  there  had  been  no 
interval  at  all  since  our  College  days.  I  was  hoping  he  might 
come  to  see  me  at  "Worcester,  knowing  his  fondness  for  cathedral 
service.  We  used  to  go  together  to  the  Oxford  chapel  services, 
and  he  would  ask  the  choristers  to  his  rooms.  I  can  hardly 
realise  that  he  is  gone,  his  death  has  come  so  suddenly  upon 
me.  .  .  . 

Might  I  ask  you  to  be  so  very  kind  as  to  acknowledge  these 
few  lines,  and  tell  me  what  you  are  able  to  tell  me  about  him. 
I  have  been  quite  cut  off  from  hearing  of  him.  The  announce- 
ment in  the  papers  is  all  I  know. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  and  your  sisters  at  Denton. 
This  recollection  mingles  with  sadness  as  I  think  of  the  occa- 
sion on  which  I  now  write.  With  my  best  wishes  for  all  of 
you  under  this  sad  event,  believe  me  yours  very  sincerely, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

This  letter  drew  from  his  friend's  sister  a  full  and  very 
interesting  reply. 

J.  B.  M.  to  Miss  Bridges. 

August  20. 

My  dear  Miss  Bridges, — Accept  my  sincere  thanks  for  your 
letter  with  the  account  of  your  brother,  so  deeply  interesting 
notwithstanding  its  sadness.  The  sudden  call,  amid  the 
activities  of  life,  to  face  another  world  is  a  thought  which,  as  it 
rises  up  before  us  in  our  ordinary  state  of  mind,  dismays  us. 
But  he  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  What  a  calm  but  strong 
spirit  he  showed  !  It  is  an  encouragement  to  those  who  survive. 
There  must  have  been  a  steady  habitual  principle  of  faith  in 
his  mind  to  have  responded  so  remarkably  to  such  a  call.  For 
my  own  part,  starting  as  we  did  life  together,  I  feel  a  peculiarly 
deep  lesson  in  his  closing  scene.  Yet  it  ought  not  to  be  only 
a  lesson,  only  a  memento  of  life's  transiency,  only  a  warning  to 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


307 


make  one  wise  and  sad.  It  ought  to  inspirit  in  a  Christian 
sense,  and  make  one  think  of  another  world  with  more  cheer- 
fulness and  hope.  May  the  recollection  of  those  last  days  be 
ever  a  source  of  peace  and  consolation  to  you,  who  saw  his 
faith  while  you  comforted  his  suffering.  I  wish  the  same  to 
your  sisters.  I  thank  both  you  and  them  for  your  kind 
remembrance  of  me. — I  am  yours  sincerely  and  much  obliged, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  the  Eev.  K.  W.  Church. 

Worcester,  November  1869. 
My  dear  Church, — Thank  you  for  the  sermon.1  I  have 
returned  the  compliment  in  kind;2  for,  by  a  curious  coinci- 
dence, we  are  both  of  us  on  Parker's  table  at  the  same  time. 
Yours  strikes  me  as  quite  in  tune  with  Westminster  Abbey,  and 
harmonising  with  the  genius  loci ;  an  historical  portrait  of 
the  episcopate  in  the  great  historical  church.  ...  I  should  like 
to  have  heard  it  in  the  place  itself ;  it  would  have  held  its  own. 
It  must  have  gratified  Moberly,  and  just  helped  him  at  the 
time  when  a  man  wants  helping  with  elevating  thoughts.  .  .  . 
We  had  a  pleasant  week  at  Oxford.  The  Bishop  of  0.  [S.  0.] 
preached  at  St.  Mary's,  but  made  no  allusion  to  his  diocesan 
promotion.3  He  strikes  people  in  society  as  in  a  state  of  plea- 
sure tinged  with  melancholy,  in  which,  however',  the  former 
preponderates. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Worcester,  November  24,  1869. 
...  I  have  not  told  you  of  William  Donkin's  death.4  He 
died  while  we  were  in  Oxford,  and  only  three  days  after  we 
called,  and  I  had  sat  talking  with  him  some  time.  He  was 
sitting  in  an  arm-chair,  looking  attenuated  indeed,  but  still  not 
perceptibly  different  from  himself  in  talking.  He  was  always 
so  very  subdued  that  there  was  less  space  for  change.  We 

1  Preached  in  Westminster  Abbey  at  the  consecration  of  Dr.  Moberly  to 
the  See  of  Salisbury. 

2  The  Roman  Council ;  preached  at  St.  Mary's,  November  7,  1869. 

3  To  the  See  of  Winchester. 

4  Saviliau  Professor  of  Astronomy  and  late  Fellow  of  University. 


3o8 


Letters  of  the 


talked  about  Church  appointments  and  the  practical  spirit  of 
the  age,  which  turned  every  place  into  practical  work  and 
would  not  recognise  study.  But  he  was  for  a  student  claiming 
his  right,  and  declining  other  engagements ;  in  which  case  he 
thought  his  right  would  come  to  be  acknowledged.  We  talked 
also  about  William  Froude,  who  tenanted  their  house  two 
or  three  times  when  they  were  in  Madeira.  There  was  so  very 
little  difference  in  him  that  when,  three  days  after,  we  were 
told  of  his  death,  it  seemed  to  throw  an  unreality  upon  the 
thing,  and  the  change  appeared  like  going  from  one  room  to 
another.  Amelia  talked  with  Mrs.  Donkin,  to  whom  obvi- 
ously nothing  immediate  was  at  all  present.  She  was  con- 
sidering the  prospects  of  the  winter,  and  the  workmen  were 
laying  down  water-pipes  in  the  hall  as  we  entered.  The  event 
came  in  so  oddly  and  incongruously  in  our  Oxford  week,  and 
yet  I  suppose  the  way  in  which  one  receives  such  pieces  of 
news  is  oftener  this  than  not. 

His  is  a  remarkable  life  in  a  sense — such  a  long  uninter- 
rupted neighbourhood  to  death,  spent  passively  and  contem- 
platively, with  nothing  to  distract  him.  The  Observer  [Mr. 
Manuel  Johnson]  used  always  to  allude  to  him  as  a  remarkable 
instance  of  a  sceptical,  scientific  mind  by  nature,  kept  in  order 
and  subdued.  It  is  curious  how  his  physical  inability  never 
took  from  his  reputation.  It  tells  well  for  Oxford.  It  was 
never  doubted  what  he  would  have  done  if  he  had  had  strength, 
and  this  was  put  to  his  credit  almost  as  much  as  if  he  had  done 
it. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

In  the  year  1869  J.  B.  M.  was  chosen  Select  Preacher,  and 
began  the  series  of  University  Sermons  since  published.1 

1  There  is  something  so  characteristic  both  of  him  and  the  writer  of  the 
following  letter  (Mrs.  James  Mozley),  that  I  yield  to  the  temptation  of 
extracting  from  it  the  adventures  of  one  sermon : — 

"  College  Green,  Worcester,  December  4,  1869. 
"  My  dear  Fanny, — It  is  time  you  should  hear  something  about  last 
Sunday's  sermon,  the  success  it  had,  the  dangers  it  ran,  the  tribulation  I 
went  through,  and  James's  astonishing  calmness  and  resignation  in  very  try- 
ing circumstances  ;  but  as  I  shall  only  require  a  very  moderate  sympathy 
with  the  troubles  that  are  past,  I  will  begin  at  the  end,  and  tell  you  how 
much  the  sermon  was  admired.    Miss  Smith  told  me  as  I  came  out  that  one 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozlcy,  D.D. 


309 


To  THE  PiEV.  Pi.  W.  Church. 

February  24,  1870. 
You  ought  to  have  been  in  Oxford  to  meet  the  Greek  Arch 
bishop  and  his  archimandrites,  who  were  with  him  three  days 

of  the  congregation  said  to  her,  "  What  a  shame  there  should  be  such  a  small 
number  to  hear  such  a  splendid  analysis  of  character!"  .  .  .  The  Vice-C. 
said  he  hoped  it  would  be  published  at  once,  while  the  impression  remained, 
but  it  is  not  going  to  be.  The  Pharisees  will  keep  unchanged  another  year 
or  two,  after  all  the  centuries  that  have  passed  since  they  were  denounced. 
.  .  .  Now,  I  have  told  you  all  I  can  about  it,  because,  of  course,  you  like  to 
hear.    I  don't  go  writing  like  this  to  other  people. 

"  You  must  know  I  took  my  black  hand-bag  in  the  carriage  with  me,  and 
put  in  it,  for  safety,  James's  sermon,  money,  etc.  We  arrived  at  Oxfoi-d  in 
the  dark.  I  had  to  wait  on  the  platform  a  quarter  of  an  hour  or  more 
before  we  could  get  our  luggage  or  a  porter,  carefully  guarding  my  bag  with 
my  foot,  hands  being  full.  Then,  on  alighting  at  New  Inn  Hall,  it  was  car- 
ried to  my  room  with  the  other  luggage,  and  I  sat  down  talking  by  the  fire, 
till  time  to  dress  for  Mr.  Smith's  dinner-party.  Imagine  my  dismay  when 
I  opened  it  to  find  it  was  some  gentleman's  bag  I  had  taken  instead  of  my 
own  ;  and  mine,  sermon  and  all,  was  gone  on  we  did  not  know  where,  or  with 
whom.  How  the  change  was  made  I  can't  tell  ;  I  took  it  from  close  by  my 
side.  Well,  it  was  dinner-time.  I  felt  turned  topsy-turvy,  obliged  to  go 
out  at  once,  as  this  party  was  given  for  us.  So  James  had  to  go  off  to  the 
station,  to  telegraph  to  three  addresses  we  found  in  the  bag,  and  that  was 
all  we  could  do.  I  happened  to  know  who  the  man  was,  when  we  found  his 
card,  so  felt  sure  all  would  be  safe  ;  but  no  hope  of  getting  the  MS.  in  time 
for  next  day.  Most  luckily — all  was  most  lucky — I  had  put  the  rough  copy 
tidily  altogether  on  the  sideboard  here,  so  I  telegraphed  to  Rose  to  send  it 
by  post,  and,  having  done  all  that  could  be  done,  went  off  to  Balliol,  deter- 
mined not  to  say  a  word,  for  I  knew  how  much  the  Smiths  would  sympa- 
thise. James  came  in  late  ;  but  Miss  S.  feeling  sure,  as  she  said,  that  I  was 
not  a  woman  to  send  my  husband  posting  off  after  luggage,  except  it  was 
very  important,  questioned  me,  so  I  was  obliged  to  confess,  but  not  till 
dinner  was  over,  what  it  was.  Great  sympathy  ;  very  little  hope.  We  went 
home.  I  had,  as  you  may  suppose,  not  much  sleep  ;  but  relying  much  on 
the  invaluable  Rose,  I  got  up  an  hour  before  morning,  and  was  up  and 
dressed  by  seven,  waiting  for  the  post.  Sermon  arrived  ;  sat  down  at  once, 
wrote,  without  moving,  till  twelve,  Alice  Cornish  doing  a  little,  and  had  just 
reckoned  I  should  have  finished  by  one,  when  the  door  opened,  in  came  the 
bag — all  contents  safe.  When  I  got  the  rough  copy  in  the  morning,  1 
was  at  peace,  knowing  I  could  write  it  out  again.  James  had  written  it  so 
badly,  it  was  impossible  to  preach  from  his  own  writing.  Nevertheless,  1 
was  glad  to  see  it  come  in.  Mr.  Waller,  the  owner  of  the  one  I  had  taken, 
behaved  in  the  most  extraordinarily  excellent  manner ;  finding  the  contents 
valuable,  he  took  such  immense  pains  that  we  got  the  bag,  as  I  said,  at 
twelve  on  Sunday  morning,  the  very  first  train  it  could  have  come  by.  The 
whole  thing  seems  wonderful.  What  things  telegrams  are  !  I  didn't  say 
how  well  James  behaved — not  a  word  of  reproach — only  threw  it  entirely  on 
the  bag  itself,  which  ought  not  to  be  black,  every  one  being  black.  So  I 
expect  it  will  end  pleasantly  in  my  having  a  nice  new  Russia  leather  one, 
conspicuously  trimmed  with  gold,  to  prevent  any  future  mistakes." 


Letters  of  the 


at  our  President's,  where  he  was  staying.    Unfortunately,  the 
means  of  communication  with  him  were  difficult,  as  he  only 
spoke  modern  Greek  and  German.    There  was  an  interpreter, 
a  Mr.  Timbres,  a  Greek  merchant  at  Liverpool,  of  position, 
who  attended  the  Archbishop  in  his  tour  for  love.    He  found 
it  dreadfully  hard  work,  as  he  told  me,  and  was  quite  knocked 
up.    All  his  power  was  elicited  by  a  conference  between  the 
Archbishop  and  Pusey,  on  Sunday,  on  the  Filioquc.    You  may 
imagine  the  difficulty  of  transferring  the  respective  communi- 
cations from  the  two  theologians  to  each  other.    The  confer- 
ence did  not  end  favourably.     Pusey  was  Latin,  and  the 
Archbishop  Greek  ;  and  they  could  not  hit  on  any  explanatory 
appendages  to  the  word.    Pusey  was  quite  prostrated  by  dis- 
appointment, and  wrote  most  downcast  letters  to  Williams.  I 
remember  Palmer  used  always  to  tell  me  the  Greeks  were 
inert  and  pliable  on  the  outside,  but  clung  tenaciously  to  every 
bit  of  their  theological  position  when  the  trial  came.    I  liked 
the  Archbishop,  and  he  was  universally  popular — quite  a  man 
of  the  world,  with  good  presence  and  address.    The  Liverpool 
archimandrite  really  made  a  good  English  speech,  with  great 
rhetorical  effect,  at  the  great  dinner  on  Monday.    But  as  con- 
versationalist, he  was  slow,  and  not  up  to  words.    There  was 
some  difficulty  in  keeping  all  the  party  in  proper  humour,  the 
Syra  archimandrite  being  disposed  to  be  sulky,  thinking  he  had 
not  sufficient  honour  paid  him.    The  Archbishop  pronounced 
him  to  G.  "Williams  avoos,  and  that  he  should  not  take  him  out 
again.    The  Bishop  of  Winchester  dined  with  us  in  the  hall, 
to  meet  the  party  on  Sunday.    He  had  had  a  hard  working 
day,  and  was  dull  at  first ;  but  brightened  up  ia  the  evening, 
and  was  very  amusing.    Burgon  was  in  good  spirits,  and  had 
received  a  great  many  flattering  letters  on  his  Temple  corre- 
spondence.   Temple  Chase  was  up.    The  Provost  was  fairly 
well,  and  was  at  the  Monday's  dinner  ;  but  Williams  was  down 
upon  him  for  having  taken  the  toast  of  the  President's  health 
out  of  his  hands,  for  whom  it  was  designed.    However,  an 
opening  was  made  for  W.,  who  likes  to  have  his  say.    He  is  a 
good  man  on  the  whole  for  such  an  occasion,  but  he  ordered 
the  poor  archimandrites  about  in  a  way  they  did  not  like.  .  .  . 
— Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


3" 


Worcester,  May  26,  1870. 
My  dear  Church, —  ...  It  is  indeed  a  very  slippery  basis  on 
which  everything  is  standing  now,  and  one  hardly  knows  what 
to  expect  next.  I  extremely  dislike  the  apparent  determination 
of  some  members  of  the  Upper  House  of  Convocation  to  cram 
this  new  translation  of  the  Bible  down  the  throats  of  people. 
It  ought,  if  it  is  ever  sent  out,  to  win  its  way  gradually,  and  by 
the  voluntary  acceptance  of  it  on  the  part  of  the  Church  at 
large.  So  much  at  least  is  due  to  the  venerable  prestige  of  the 
authorised  version.  I  do  not  see  well,  moreover,  how  it  can  be 
otherwise,  for  Convocation  cannot  authorise.  Yet  some  talked 
as  if  some  definite  act  of  authority  was  immediately  to  impose 
this  new  translation  on  the  Church.  .  .  . — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

In  1870  J.  B.  M.  and  his  wife  took  a  tour  in  Scotland,  carry- 
ing with  them  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Blackwood,  then  at  his 
country  house  of  Strathtyrum. 

To  his  Sister. 

Dunkeld,  September  30,  1870. 
We  have  just  arrived  here  from  St.  Andrews,  where  we  spent 
two  days,  dining  yesterday  at  Strathtyrum.  It  is  a  large  house, 
with  grounds  and  woods,  and  the  old  part  was  Archbishop 
Sharp's  country  house,  the  very  one  he  was  journeying  to 
when  he  was  murdered.  The  Blackwoods  are  most  hospitable. 
He  is  an  uncommonly  shrewd  man,  with  much  humour,  and 
plenty  of  stories  about  literary  men.  .  .  .  There  was  an 

authoress   staying  there — Mrs.  0  .    We  both  thought 

her  very  taking ;  with  something  of  an  arch  expression,  a 
musical  voice,  and  inclined  to  be  cheerful  and  merry,  but  with 
a  very  quiet  way  about  her.  She  is  almost  one  of  the  family 
there,  Blackwood  having  known  her  from  a  girl,  and  first 
brought  her  out  in  print  as  a  critic  of  Thackeray,  Dickens,  etc. 
The  said  Thackeray  complained  of  some  of  her  criticisms  to 
him  (Blackwood),  with  whom  he  was  on  intimate  terms.  So, 
after  much  arguing  on  T.'s  part  to  prove  that  "  Blackwood  " 
had  made  a  great  mistake,  B.  said  simply,  "  Well,  Thack,  I  won't 


312 


Letters  of  the 


repeat  it,"  which  produced  a  tremendous  laugh  from  Thackeray, 
and  the  retort,  "  You  rascal ;"  and  so  it  ended  ;  the  admission 
gained  being  that  Thackeray  was  ready  to  take  his  chance,  and 
have  a  little  more  such  criticism  if  it  was  forthcoming.  .  .  . 

I  should  describe  the  Scotch  service  both  Free  and  Estab- 
lished as  ultra-cathedral,  in  the  sense  of  being  totally  uncon- 
gregational.  The  hymns  rise  up  out  of  an  enclosure  beneath 
the  precentor's  desk  concealing  the  choir,  and  the  congregation 
quietly  listen  sitting.  The  effect  of  this  in  a  large,  round, 
galleried  church  holding  2000  or  3000  people  is  rather  absurd. 
The  sermons  were  good  compositions,  read  without  any  action. 

I  must  not  omit  Abbotsford.  Its  gimcrack  character  is 
exaggerated.  It  is  a  nice  place,  and  looks  like  a  home.  Hope 
Scott  has  built  a  new  part  for  himself,  not  shown ;  it  is  well 
added,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  Scott's  Abbotsford.  .  .  . — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

Did  I  tell  you  that  at  G.'s  there  rose  a  discussion  as  to  the 
number  of  words  a  labouring  man  in  the  country  had  for  all 
the  purposes  of  speech?  It  was  estimated  differently  at  500, 
300,  and  100.  I  hazarded  the  remark  that  the  women  had  a 
larger  vocabulary  than  the  men.  L.  did  not  accept  the  fact 
absolutely,  but  I  think  I  am  right. 

Shoreham,  September  1870. 
My  dear  Church, — What  extraordinary  times  we  live  in ! 
We  are  here  enthusiastic  Germans.  How  little  one  knew  a 
month  ago  upon  what  an  edge  the  empire  was  tottering !  I 
suppose  the  Emperor  himself  saw  it  only  too  keenly.  Indeed, 
one  cannot  help  thinking,  if  he  had  been  a  more  stupid  man 
and  not  been  so  conscious  of  the  slipperiness  of  his  position, 
he  might  have  tided  it  over.  There  appears  from  all  accounts 
to  be  a  strong  peace,  commercial  side  in  France,  that  would 
have  supported  him  in  doing  nothing.  But  the  danger  of  the 
other  side,  and  all  his  own  weak  points,  seem  to  have  filled  his 
mind.  I  came  across  Banke's  summary  of  the  character  of 
Clement  VII. — a  regular  Italian  type — which  seemed  to  cor- 
respond rather  curiously  with  the  Emperor's.  Of  course,  such 
correspondences  do  not  bear  pursuing  into  details,  but  there  are 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


313 


some  general  features.  I  enclose  it.1  What  a  melancholy 
picture  he  presents  now  !  I  thought  the  inner  paragraph  going 
into  such  details  about  him  very  out  of  taste.  What  a  good 
letter  of  Max  M. !  We  have  been  here  now  a  month  ;  Caroline 
is  with  us.  .  .  .  There  seem  signs  of  an  incipient  row  in 
Germany  on  the  Infallibility  question. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

The  Rev.  R.  W.  Church  to  J.  B.  M. 

Whatley  Rectory,  Sciitcmber  7,  1870. 

Dear  Mozley, — We  have  certainly  lived  to  see  wonderful 
things.  It  seems  to  be  a  part  of  the  age  of  railroads  and  tele- 
graphs that  things  are  brought  to  such  quick  decision.  But 
the  incredibility  beforehand  of  what  has  happened  now,  com- 
bined with  its  perfect  naturalness  and  reasonableness,  now 
that  it  has  happened,  is  alarming,  when  one  reflects  that  our 
own  turn  may  come. 

What  is  to  come  of  France  ?  The  spirit  of  falsehood,  and 
lying  and  bragging,  at  any  rate,  has  not  yet  been  put  down  ; 
and  with  that  spirit,  and  the  rage  and  shame  of  such  a  humilia- 
tion, I  look  with  utter  perplexity  as  to  what  will  be  the  effect 
of  the  continued  disaster  which  I  suppose  is  to  be  looked  for. 
France,  of  course,  is  in  a  very  different  material  condition  from 
what  it  was  in  1792,  or  even  1830  and  1848.  But  it  neverwas 
in  such  danger  and  such  shame  as  it  is  now.  It  seems  to  me 
that  it  will  be  more  easy  for  the  Germans  to  gain  victories  than 
to  know  what  to  do  with  them. 

I  wish  I  could  be  enthusiastic  for  the  Germans.  As  far  as 
the  war  goes,  they  have  only  dealt  back  in  wonderful  style 
what  undoubtedly  was  meant  in  full  measure  for  them  ;  and  so 
far  I  am  entirely  satisfied.  But  in  spite  of  Max  Muller, 
Bismarck  sticks  in  my  throat.    I  cannot  doubt  that  he  not 

1  Extract  from  Ranke's  character  of  Clement  VII.  :  "  His  acuteness 
sometimes  seemed  injurious  to  him.  He  seemed  to  be  too  conscious  that  he 
was  the  weaker.  All  possibilities  of  danger  arose  before  him,  and  har- 
assed his  judgment,  and  puzzled  his  will.  Some  people  are  endowed  with 
a  quick  and  intuitive  perception  of  what  is  the  simple,  the  practical,  the 
expedient  in  public  affairs  ;  he  possessed  it  not.  In  the  most  critical 
moments  he  was  seen  to  doubt,  to  vacillate,  and  to  consider  how  he  could 
save  money." 


3M 


Letters  of  the 


only  prepared,  but  wished  for,  this  war  as  the  one  thing  which 
would  put  the  keystone  on  his  work,  and  weld  together  the 
South  and  North  Germans.  His  end  has  been  a  great  one. 
But  his  policy  in  pursuing  it  seems  to  me  simply  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  of  the  Emperor,  when  he  sought  the  great  end 
of  a  strong  Government  in  France.  He  was  determined  to  see 
Germany  great  and  united  in  his  own  day,  and  cared  nothing 
for  the  price  or  the  means.  First  Denmark,  then  the  Austrian 
war,  then  for  four  years  letting  the  Emperor  go  on  talking- 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Projct  de  TraiU,  instead  of  at  once  and 
in  earnest  stopping  him.  I  cannot  conceive  an  honest  man 
letting  even  an  antagonist  go  on  believing  that,  with  perse- 
verance, the  bait  might  take,  and  quietly  listening  to  proposals 
which  he  felt  to  be  disgraceful ;  and  I  don't  see  how,  at  the 
best,  Bismarck  can  be  acquitted  of  this. 

Your  extract  from  Banke  about  Clement  VII.  is  a  striking 
parallel,  and  I  have  no  doubt  suggests  the  true  explanation  of 
the  Emperor's  mad  move.  I  was  reading  about  Clement  in 
Guicciardini  lately.  When  the  Constable  of  Bourbon  was 
advancing  on  Borne,  Guicciardini  was  the  Fope's  officer,  and 
wanted  money  to  pay  troops  to  oppose  Bourbon,  and  he  could 
get  none ;  and  he  is  in  such  a  rage  with  Clement  because  the 
Fope  would  not  adopt  the  obvious  expedient  of  selling  a  dozen 
Cardinal's  hats.  He  is  indignant  that  a  man  of  such  lax  views 
generally  should  let  himself  be  overthrown  for  a  mere  ex- 
ceptional and  anomalous  bit  of  scrupulousness. — Ever  yours 
affectionately,  K  W.  Church. 

J.  B.  M.  to  the  Fev.  B.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  September  1870. 
My  dear  Church, — I  can  quite  enter  into  your  remark 
about  Bismarck,  and  can  abundantly  comprehend  his  being 
thought  a  very  suspicious  character.  And  yet  I  thought  there 
was  something  natural  in  Max  Midler's  explanation  of  the 
private  confabs,  and  the  certainty  that  an  abrupt  stopper  given 
by  Bismarck  to  the  French  proposal  would  be  a  signal  for 
immediate  war.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  like  a  pistol 
being  presented  at  you,  and  you  parley  with  the  man  without 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


315 


the  same  amount  of  scrupulosity  that  you  might  have  under 
other  circumstances,  if  only  you  can  prevent  him  from  firing. 
The  complication  in  France  seems  growing  worse,  and  I  should 
think  even  Bismarck  himself  must  have  some  difficulty  in 
making  out  whether  he  had  rather  France  had  a  Government 
or  not.  In  the  latter  case,  one  does  not  see  what  is  to  stop  the 
war  at  all,  there  being  no  power  to  treat  with  about  peace. 
And  if  French  anarchy  goes  on,  one  sees  no  terminus  but  that 
of  Prussia  simply  drawing  her  own  frontier,  and  occupying 
Metz,  Strasburg,  etc.,  as  her  own  fortresses.  But  this  would 
not  be  satisfactory. 

How  quietly  Rome  has  gone  !  How  little  one  could  have  pro- 
phesied such  a  tranquil  end,  as  if  nothing  at  all  had  happened. 
People  do  not  talk  about  it.  If  they  do,  it  is  a  forced  recall  of 
their  attention.  Immense  armies  do  occupy  the  ground  so,  and 
create  an  imagery  that  fills  the  mind.  The  next  thing  is 
liussia  occupying  Constantinople.  One  really  hardly  sees 
what  there  is  to  prevent  her  just  now.  We  are  expecting  the 
Empress  to  come  to  Brighton. 

SHOREHAM,  October  22,  1870. 
My  dear  Church, — Many  thanks  for  the  St.  Anselm.  I 
have  been  very  glad  to  renew  acquaintance  with  it  in  its  new 
form.  I  think  the  theological  metaphysician  and  the  states- 
man, in  his  own  sphere  of  politics,  are  so  striking  a  combina- 
tion in  St.  Anselm.  I  hardly  can  point  to  such  another 
instance.  Augustine  had  dealings  with  the  civil  powers,  but 
the  Donatists'  was  an  inferior  local  question  in  its  civil  aspects, 
and  he  had  to  deal  more  with  proconsuls  and  the  police  than 
with  chiefs.  Looking  upon  Anselm  on  his  student's  side,  the 
region  of  subject  he  takes  is  natural,  he  looks  so  intensely  of 
the  student  type,  and  so  naturally  absorbed  a  man  in  his  own 
thoughts.  He  must  have  had  great  power  of  breaking  off  one 
thing  and  taking  to  another  as  he  was  called  upon — a  most 
difficult  thing,  and  an  enviable  faculty.  On  the  side  of  the 
affections  too  he  throws  off  the  student  type  with  great 
easiness.  Scholars  and  intellectual  men  have  not  generally 
much  expressiveness  in  that  direction,  but  there  is  an  elegance 


316 


Letters  of  the 


and  flexibility  in  him  which  fit  him  for  society  and  for  popu- 
larity. One  must  certainly  rank  him  as  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  the  Church's  characters.  There  is  a  great  finish 
and  completeness  in  your  portrait,  which  very  vividly  sets  off 
and  combines  the  different  and  opposite  characteristics  of  his 
mind,  and  gives  the  largeness  and  freedom  of  the  type  in  which 
he  is  cast.  His  attitude  on  the  Investiture  question  is  de- 
scribed with  precision,  and  the  aspect  of  it  as  "  positive  law  " 
separates  him  very  definitely  from  the  ground  of  a  zealot.  One 
sees  how  constantly  a  point  leaps  to  a  Divine  law  level  unless 
watched  ;  and  even  the  steady  thinkers  that  watch  it  cannot 
stop  the  impetus.  His  attitude  on  the  miraculous  claims  of 
the  Church  is  striking  too  in  its  guardedness.  It  is  curious 
how  many  great  Church  minds  have  been  in  the  position  of 
checkers  throughout.  Gregory  on  the  Eoman  claim,  Bernard 
on  the  cult  of  the  Virgin,  even  Hildebrand  doctrinally — on 
the  transubstantive  point.  Bowdeu  shows  that  he  protected 
Berengarius.1  It  would  be  curious  to  make  out  a  list  of  the 
many  that  have  been  on  the  protesting  side  on  some  point  of 
the  day,  their  influence  having  been  overruled  by  the  strength 
of  the  popular  will  of  lower  and  coarser  thought.  One  sees 
the  same  thing  in  parties  on  a  smaller  scale.  Thomas  Scott, 
the  man  whom  the  Evangelicals  are  most  proud  of,  was  all  his 
ministerial  life  fighting  on  the  side  of  works,  as  against  what 

1  Berengarius  opposed  the  definite  doctrine  of  "change  of  substance,"  i.e. 
Transubstantiation,  maintained  by  Paschasius,  Radbert,  and  Lanfranc.  For 
this  he  was  accused  of  denying  the  Real  Presence,  which  he  always  affirmed. 
Hildebrand  took  his  part :  1st,  At  Tours,  1054  (Bowden,  ii.  242) ;  2d,  More 
doubtfully  at  Rome,  1059  (lb.  ii.  243).  Hildebrand,  now  Gregory  vn., 
was  induced  to  send  for  him  to  Rome,  1078;  "but  on  the  council  assem- 
bling he  acted  the  part  of  a  friend  to  the  accused.  Berengarius,  with  his 
concurrence,  in  lieu  of  repeating  the  declaration  of  1059,  made  the  follow- 
ing in  less  stringent  terms.  .  .  .  This  confession  was  no  sooner  made  than 
Gregory  declared  it  was  enough  for  the  Faith,  .  .  .  that  B.  was  no  heretic  " 
(Bowden,  ii.  244,  245).  When  Berengarius's  opponents  still  pressed  for 
more  stringent  measures,  Gregory  allowed  them  to  exact  a  further  profes- 
sion of  faith  from  Berengarius  ;  but  he  sent  him  home  under  protection,  and 
forbade  any  further  molestation  of  him  (Bowden,  ii.  247-8.)  "Freed  from 
his  difficulties,  Berengarius  avowed,  on  his  return,  his  original  opinions,  and 
ascribed  his  formal  disavowal  of  them  to  the  fear  of  instant  death.  But 
Gregory,  however  urged  on  the  point  by  Berengarius's  enemies,  firmly 
refused — and  to  the  end  of  his  life  persevered  in  the  refusal — to  take  any 
further  measures  against  him"  (Bowden,  ii.  24S). 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


3i7 


was  considered  the  high  Justification  doctrine,  and  was  in  bad 
odour  with  a  large  section  of  his  party. — Yours, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Sister. 

Shoreham,  Dec.  1870. 
"We  are  Germans  here.  I  think  the  right  is  on  their  side, 
and  the  alarmists,  English  as  well  as  others,  who  practically 
deny  their  right  to  unite  and  form  one  nation,  are  totally 
in  the  wrong.  The  French  obstinacy,  in  preferring  dissolution 
as  a  nation  to  parting  with  two  Departments,  seems  to  me 
irrational  and  wrong.  A  thorough  beating  in  war  is  a  fact  of 
Providence,  and  ought  to  be  accepted,  and  it  is  impiety  and 
rebellion  to  prefer  national  suicide  to  a  moderate  penalty. 
Yet  some  encourage  them  in  it  as  if  it  were  fine.  It  is  con- 
sidered heroism.  It  is  really  cowardice.  They  have  not  the 
moral  courage  to  avow  defeat.  One  hopes,  however,  that  they 
are  not  thoroughly  committed  to  the  principle,  and  that  if  Paris 
gives  way  they  will  surrender. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  his  Brother,  T.  M. 

January  23,  1871. 
Dear  Tom, — I  have  received  a  note  marked  "  Most  jwivate" 
offering  me  the  Eegius  Professorship  of  Divinity,  which  is 
likely  to  be  immediately  vacated.  .  .  .  The  offer  is  most 
sudden  and  unexpected.  I  dread  the  change  at  present,  and 
do  not  feel  particularly  comfortable.  My  long  absence  from 
Oxford,  my  total  inexperience  in  lecturing,  and  the  difficulties 
of  the  times  appal  me  when  I  think  of  them,  and  I  could  doubt 
a  choice  which  takes  me  from  the  tranquil  harbour  of  Worcester 
into  the  agitated  sea  of  Oxford.  But  one  follows  a  kind  of 
destiny  which  antecedents  form  for  one. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — This  is,  of  course,  a  secret  at  present. 

To  the  Rev.  Ii.  W.  Church. 

Shoreham,  January  29,  1871. 
My  dear  Church, — The  ultimatum  arrived  yesterday,  though 
not  before  the  announcement  in  the  papers. 


3i3 


Letters  of  the 


I  am  glad  you  sympathise  about  Ewelme.  I  am  clear  my- 
self as  to  the  improvement  that  a  separation  would  be,  and  that 
a  parish  of  700  population  ought  not  to  be  joined  to  a  Profes- 
sorship, thus  saddling  a  parish  of  such  size  with  perpetual 
non-residence,  while  the  Professorship,  too,  is  saddled  with  the 
perpetual  burden  of  so  large  a  charge.  It  is  a  different  case,  I 
think,  if  you  are  already  in  a  parish,  and  do  not  want  to  give  it 
up.  There  may  be  reasons  for  not  desiring  a  break  from  con- 
nections already  formed,  and  the  size  makes  a  difference,  Old 
Shoreham  being  a  little  more  than  a  third  of  Ewelme.  ...  A 
separation  was  attempted  the  last  vacancy.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  hitch  was. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

The  connection  which  my  brother  had  formed  with  his 
parishioners  at  Old  Shoreham  was  of  a  very  real  character. 
While  he  was  thoroughly  acquainted  with  them  all,  their 
comparatively  small  number  admitted  of  his  pursuing  his 
theological  studies.  His  wife's  heart  was  in  the  parish ;  both 
were  lavish  of  all  the  aids  that  an  open  hand,  and,  in  her  case, 
exacter  knowledge  of  the  needs  of  the  poor  in  illness  could 
bestow. 

Dr.  Posey  to  J.  B.  M. 

February  7,  1871. 
My  deah  Mozley, — How  strangely  different  are  the  times 
in  which  you  return  among  us  from  those  in  which  you  left 
us  !  Now  the  fight  is  not  for  fundamentals  even,  but  as  to  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God,  the  living  of  the  soul  after  death, 
or  whether  we  have  any  soul  at  all ;  whether  there  is  or  can  be 
any  positive  truth  except  as  to  physics,  etc.  I  asked  a  physical 
Professor  about  a  E.  C.  book  on  geology  and  the  relations  of 
physical  science  to  faith  discussed  in  it.  "  No  one,"  he  said, 
"  thinks  any  longer  of  this ;  the  question  is  wholly  removed 
to  materialism,"  etc.,  and  instanced  some  eminent  person,  or 
persons,  who  was  entirely  happy,  having  satisfied  himself  that 
he  had  no  hereafter.  Another  or  other  physicists  look  upon 
revelation  as  an  interference  with  the  study  of  physical  cer- 
tainties. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mo z ley,  D.D. 


3i9 


But  we  have  a  great  battle  ;  I  for  whatever  time  remains  to 
me,  you  during,  I  hope,  many  years  of  vigour.  It  is  an 
encouragement  that  the  battle  is  so  desperate.  All  or  nothing  ; 
as  when  the  Gospel  first  broke  in  upon  heathen  philosophers  ; 
and  the  fishermen  had  the  victory.  Will  you  think  about  that 
transmitted  plan  of  the  Begius  Professor  giving  men  twelve 
lectures,  which  are  to  crowd  all  theology  into  a  fortnight. 
They  are  the  bane  of  theological  study  here.  Parents  and 
young  men  get  through  and  get  off  as  cheaply  as  they  can.  But 
now  that,  if  they  like,  candidates  for  orders  can  begin  the  study 
after  moderations,  there  is  no  excuse.  I  do  not  mean  that  you 
should  not,  icar  e^o^rjv,  sign  testimonials  for  bishops,  but  I  think 
that  the  testimonials  ought  to  cost  men  something  more  than  a 
fortnight.  The  plan  began  in  my  day,  when  Bishop  Lloyd  had 
to  prepare  lectures  in  a  hurry,  and  began  that  system  of  private 
lecturing.  But  then  we  had  at  least  alternate  days  on  which 
to  digest  what  we  heard,  as  the  lectures  were  spread  over  a 
month.  Burton,  in  good  nature,  contracted  them  into  a  fort- 
night. You  will  think  about  this.  God  be  with  you  in  all 
things. — Yours  affectionately,  E.  B.  Pusey. 

In  the  summer  of  1871  we — my  sister  Elizabeth  and  myself 
— had  the  great  pleasure  of  receiving  Dr.  Newman  at  Barrow. 
He  was  spending  a  few  days  with  his  sister  at  Derby,  and 
the  family  party  adjourned  to  Barrow-on-Trent  for  two  days. 
It  was  a  happy  and  memorable  occasion.  Full  accounts  of 
it  were  sent  to  Worcester,  where  my  brother  was  still  re- 
siding. He  writes  a  long  letter  in  reply,  greatly  interested, 
dwelling  on  persons  of  the  day  and  events — not,  however, 
suited  for  present  transcription.  Dr.  Newman  had  written  a 
note  to  him  on  the  occasion  to  which  allusion  is  made. 

Worcester,  June  29,  1871. 
My  dear  Anne, — Newman's  week  at  Derby  and  Barrow 
must  indeed  have  been  a  curious  revival  of  the  past.    It  would 
have  been  difficult  to  find  any  party  where  the  enormous 
chasm  of  intervening  events  could  have  preserved  still  so  com- 


320 


Letters  of  the 


pletely  the  substantial  identity  of  feeling  and  character.  .  .  . 
J.  H.  N.'s  note  to  me  was  very  pleasant,  and  just  what  one 
liked.  I  could  not  but  observe  the  hand  so  strong  and  very 
like  its  old  self.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

P.S. — We  spent  an  evening  with  B.  lately.  He  knows 
everybody,  among  others  J.  H.  N.,  and  has  called  on  him  some- 
times at  Birmingham.    He  knew  him  a  little  in  Oxford  in  old 

times,  and  has  tried  to  get  him  over  to  ,  but  not  succeeded. 

J.  H.  N.  does  not  much  care  about  meeting  celebrities  at 
breakfast. 

J.  B.  M.'s  next  letter  to  his  friend  and  correspondent  is 
addressed  to  him  under  a  new  designation  : — 

To  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 

Ch.  Ch.,  November  12,  1871. 
My  dear  Dean, — Thank  you  for  your  congratulations  on  the 
Doctrinate.  I  cannot  say  that  I  particularly  affect  the  title, 
but  as  I  am  presumptuous  enough  now  to  pretend,  in  fact,  to 
instruct  others,  I  cannot  reasonably  complain  of  the  title  of 
instructor.  .  .  .  Yours,  J.  B.  M. 

Ch.  Ch.,  November  1871. 
My  dear  Dean, — We  should  like  very  much  to  see  your 
new  home,  but  we  shall  hardly  be  able  to  bring  it  in  our 
journey  back  to  Shoreham  this  time.  .  .  .  Oxford  is  certainly 
something  of  a  whirl  with  its  Convocations,  Congregations,  and 
meetings  of  all  kinds,  to  which  we  have  added  this  term  special 
meetings  of  the  Divinity  Professors  on  the  subject  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed,  to  which  the  Bishop  has  called  our  atten- 
tion. .  .  . 

Have  you  read  Goldwin  Smith  ?  The  epigrammatic  power 
wonderful.  He  is,  in  his  way,  and  with  all  his  bitterness,  still 
something  of  a  prophet.  He  denounces,  and  with  a  moral 
weight  and  force  not  wholly  wanting.  He  has  a  true  perception 
of  public  sin.  And  the  English,  both  Church  and  nation,  has 
in  him  a  judge  who  tells  the  truth,  though  savagely. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  321 


In  January  1872  he  received  the  news  of  Mr.  Scott's  death, 
his  co-editor,  in  days  past,  of  the  Christian  Remembrancer.  Mr. 
Scott  had  been  seriously  ill  for  some  time,  and  accounts  had 
reached  him  of  his  state.  When  last  in  London  J.  B.  M.  had 
called,  but  found  him  unable  to  see  callers.  Since  his  connection 
with  the  Christian  Remembrancer  was  loosened,  communication 
had  naturally  become  very  rare. 

January,  1872. 

Dear  Elizabeth, — I  wrote  to  Mrs.  Scott  yesterday.  I  have 
often  thought  that  there  is  a  curious  caprice  in  the  arrange- 
ments of  life,  which  makes  one  see  absolutely  nothing  of  some 
with  whom  one  has  been  intimate,  and  whose  society  would 
make  a  difference  in  life,  and  a  great  deal  of  others  who  are 
nothing  at  all  to  one.  For  twenty  years  I  have  seen  hardly 
anything  of  Scott,  and  yet  there  was  no  reason  why  I  should 
not  fall  in  with  him  any  day,  and  have  an  intimate  conversa- 
tion with  him.  He  was  thoroughly  good-hearted,  and  a  cynic 
with  it.  This  is  not  the  incongruous  combination  which  it 
might  seem  ;  if  well  tempered,  it  is  a  good  one.  The  Guardian 
memorial  is  not  well  done — too  taken  up  with  externals,  boards, 
committees,  meetings,  and  other  fussinesses.  There  certainly 
was  something  very  sterling  about  him,  a  true  ring ;  and  that 
in  spite  of  various  seeming  levities  in  him.  I  don't  think  I 
ever  knew  any  one  that  I  could  feel  more  sure  about  behaving 
quite  well  to  one  in  any  complication  and  trying  test,  where  he 
could  not  be  found  out  if  he  behaved  ill.  ...  I  have  always 
felt  that  Scott  possessed  a  character  and  had  several  features 
in  peculiar  combination.  C.  remarked  the  other  day  what  was 
quite  true,  that  he  had  an  affectionate  manner  to  his  friends, 
though  there  was  a  considerable  cynical  element  in  him.  He 
had  a  gentleness  in  all  private  communications  with  you, 
whether  in  writing  or  viva  voce.  It  was  a  contrast  to  some 
who  abound  in  honeyed  modifications  of  expression  in  print, 
and  are  always  on  the  edge  of  insolence  in  private  life.  Church 
and  myself  were  comparing  notes.  He  said  he  had  seen  no- 
thing of  him  for  years.    One  thing  was,  he  was  not  a  man 

x 


322 


Letters  of  the 


that  went  down  into  the  country — [he  had  a  house  at  Maiden- 
head, and  was  devoted  to  fishing] — and  many  of  his  friends 
depended  entirely  on  visits  to  London  for  a  chance  of  seeing 
him ;  and  seeing  a  man  in  London  is  a  chance,  unless  you  make 
a  regular  appointment,  which  is  somewhat  formal,  and  requires 
antecedent  arrangements.  On  the  whole,  seeing  people  is  one 
of  those  things  which  look  excessively  easy  in  all  prospective 
and  all  retrospective  views  of  life,  hut  which  are  difficult  in 
the  present.1 

Heavy  personal  anxieties  were  soon  to  press  upon  my  brother ; 
in  fact,  could  not  be  wholly  absent  from  him  at  this  time.  There 
is  something,  perhaps,  in  the  praise  of  routine  that  occurs  in  a 
letter  to  his  brother,  T.  M.,  which  forebodes  change. 

"  There  seems,  indeed,  to  be  a  providential  design  in  making 
routine — which  must  be  the  life  of  the  mass — such  a  satisfac- 
tion and  repose  to  the  mind.  Country  clergymen,  for  example, 
are  a  happy  instance  of  its  soothing  power.  I  confess  an 
enormous  attraction  towards  a  routine  life.  There  is  nothing 
happier  than  life  passing  quietly,  and  one  day  exactly  like 
another — at  least  that  is  my  experience." 

In  March  1872  James  speaks  of  past  engagements  at  the  be- 
ginning of  term,  where  "  we  [himself  and  his  wife]  met  friends," 
etc. ;  but  his  letters  soon  became  reports  of  his  wife's  health — 
making  the  best  of  it,  never  speaking  of  danger,  to  the  family 
circle — leaving  it,  however,  to  be  inferred.  To  his  friend  Dean 
Church,  writing  May  30,  there  are  some  touching  words  giving 
expression  to  the  fear  of  what  was  coming,  and  ending,  "  pray 
for  her  and  for  me." 

In  June  a  house  was  taken  in  the  Parks,  for  fresher  air  and 
quiet,  to  which  the  invalid  was  removed  under  the  superin- 

1  A  postscript  to  this  letter  touches  on  another  life  ended — a  life  in  strong 
contrast  with  that  on  which  his  thoughts  had  been  dwelling.  Our  young 
friend.  Alice  Wilkinson,  younger  daughter  of  the  Rev.  W.  F.  Wilkinson, 
late  vicar  of  St.  Werburgh's,  Derby,  and  at  that  time  rector  of  Lutterwortli, 
died  at  this  date.    This  event  led  to  a  correspondence  shortly  after. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Moziey,  D.D. 


tendence  of  her  brother,  I  )r.  Ogle.  From  thence  the  following- 
letter  was  written  when  the  end  came : — 

Dereham  House,  July  29,  1872, 
My  dear  Church, — My  dear  Amelia  died  this  morning.  It 
was  sudden.  She  had  partially  recovered,  as  I  told  you,  from 
the  prostration  of  her  long  neuralgic  illness ;  hut  fainting  fits 
had  just  begun  to  come  on,  the  result  of  a  disordered  circula- 
tion. In  the  second  of  these  she  died  at  about  two  o'clock  this 
morning.  You  will  know  my  state  without  my  speaking  of  it. 
She  was  all  in  all  to  me.  Always  close  to  me — so  affectionate, 
so  generous,  so  true-hearted.  I  tremble  when  I  think  of  what 
I  have  to  go  through  in  parting  from  her.  May  God  assist  me. 
The  vista  of  the  past  rises  before  me,  so  cheered  and  animated 
by  her  presence.  I  feel  that,  as  far  as  what  this  world  can  give 
is  concerned,  my  life  is  over. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

I  have  some  scruple  in  giving  the  following  letter.  The 
reader  may  feel  that  the  privacy  of  deep  feeling  has  been  in- 
vaded ;  but  it  conveys  a  lesson  ;  and  as  he  had,  to  use  his  own 
words,  in  accepting  his  office  undertaken  to  instruct  others,  I 
venture  to  transcribe  it : — 

Dereham  House,  Oxford,  August  7. 
My  dear  Anne, — One  looks  back  now  on  a  death  and  on  a 
funeral.  Such  is  the  order  of  things  in  this  world  that  what  is 
so  long  an  uncertain  future,  doubtful  and  agitating,  is  changed 
in  so  short  a  time  into  a  retrospect.  As  I  look  back,  however, 
I  see  more  and  more  what  I  have  lost ;  and  what  haunts  me 
night  and  day  is  the  reflection  that  I  was  not  sufficiently  grate- 
ful to  God  for  the  gift  while  I  had  it.  It  would  appear  almost 
an  impossibility  sometimes  to  realise  a  source  of  happiness  while 
you  had  it,  and  that  the  loss  of  it  was  necessary  to  make  you 
feel  it  adequately,  and  as  it  deserved  to  be  felt.  There  is  such 
a  way  of  taking  for  granted  what  we  have,  and  only  appreciating 
at  its  full  worth  what  we  have  not.  It  is  almost  the  great  fault 
of  human  life.    It  would  seem  that  all  would  be  well  if  one 


324 


Letters  of  the 


could  only  realise  the  happiness  one  had.  Some  do  this  in  a 
great  degree — Mr.  Kickards  did.  But  it  is  very  rare ;  yet  not 
to  do  it  is  a  certain  source  of  deep  regret. 

When  I  think  of  Amelia,  her  great  affectionateness  and 
generosity  of  character  is  the  charm  of  it ;  but  there  was  so 
much  substance  in  her  mind ;  power  of  reading,  entering  into 
what  she  read,  ruling  her  household,  and  all  business-like  gifts, 
which  do  not  often  go  with  intellectual  quickness.  And  with 
all  her  openness  and  freedom  from  reserve,  some  parts  of  her 
character  only  came  out  in  fragments. 

It  was  a  remarkable  feature  of  the  illness — the  great  cheer- 
fulness of  the  sick-room.  It  was  the  only  place  which  was 
cheerful ;  all  was  gloom  out  of  it.  She  gave  directions  about 
herself  with  great  clearness  and  rapidity,  but  Eose  followed  her 
perfectly,  and  this  of  itself  gave  life  to  the  scene.  Then  she 
was  cheerful  in  talk,  and  liked  talking,  though  she  preferred 
having  one  at  a  time  to  talk  to.  She  was  anxious  that  her  ill- 
ness should  do  good  to  others.  She  thought  much  of  death, 
though  it  was  uncertain  to  her  how  long  her  illness  might  be, 
and  whether  she  might  not  recover  from  some  symptoms.  She 
had  very  intense  feelings  on  catching  glimpses  of  the  green  and 
sunshine,  and  said  to  Caroline,  "  You  do  not  know  what  it  is  to 
look  on  nature  with  death  in  prospect.  I  cannot  tell  you.  It 
is  indescribable." 

With  respect  to  myself,  some  friends  who  write  to  me  say 
that  work  will  ultimately  be  my  chief  consolation ;  but  I  feel 
that  some  considerable  time  must  pass  before  I  can  work 
naturally.  A  state  of  conscious  deprivation  of  so  deep  a  kind 
is  a  great  depression  of  all  strength  and  activity  of  mind,  though 
it  is  attended  by  thoughts,  I  hope,  more  useful  to  me  than  any 
activity. — Yours  affectionately,1  J.  B.  M. 

Many  thanks  to  Elizabeth  for  her  very  interesting  letter. 

1  Perhaps  some  lines  from  the  answer  to  my  brother's  letter — an  answer 
written  under  the  pressure  of  strong  feeling,  but  of  which  no  word  need 
be  retracted — may  serve  the  purpose  better  than  any  comment  written  after 
the  lapse  of  years  : — 

"  Barrow,  August  9,  1872. 
"  My  dear  James, — I  do  not  know  that  I  should  have  written  to-day  but 
for  a  little  message  from  Jemima.    I  had  just  received  your  interesting  and 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


325 


A  recent  page  records  the  death  of  a  young  friend.  Her 
mother,  in  writing  to  J.  B.  M.  on  his  own  loss,  showed  such 
an  intelligence  of  sympathy  as  touched  a  chord,  and  led  him 
to  enter,  in  successive  letters,  upon  the  uses  and  purposes  of 
bereavement  in  its  more  poignant  aspects  : — 

To  Mrs.  Wilkinson. 

Oxford,  August  31,  1872. 
My  dear  Friend, — Thank  you  for  your  kind  and  true  sym- 
pathy with  me  in  my  great  sorrow.  Your  own  great  loss 
enables  you  to  feel  that  of  another.  She  was,  indeed,  a  constant 
source  of  cheerfulness  and  happiness  to  me.  She  never  lost 
her  youthful  spirit,  and  the  warmth  and  affectionateness  of  a 
youthful  character,  whose  self-sacrifice  is  not  a  laboured  effort, 
but  always  a  ready  and  cheerful  gift  to  others.    The  loss  of 

much  valued  letter,  of  which  my  mind  was  very  full,  and  T  gave  it  to  her  to 
read.  She  returned  it  to  me,  and,  with  a  broken  voice,  asked  me  to  give 
her  love,  and  to  tell  you  you  were  constantly  in  her  thoughts.  She  cannot 
but  feel  that  your  loss  may  some  day  be  hers.  So  I  judged  by  the  depth  of 
her  sympathy.  [This  foreboding  had  its  swift  fulfilment ;  my  brother  John 
died  on  the  23d  of  October,  1872].  I  think  all  you  say  of  the  difficulty  of 
valuing  enough  blessings  while  we  have  them  is  an  inevitable  sentiment  on 
the  loss  of  them.  .  .  .  One  satisfaction  must  be  yours,  that  those  intellec- 
tual qualities  you  dwell  on  as  so  striking  in  Amelia,  and  which  made  her  so 
charming  to  others,  were  much  quickened  by  marriage.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  her  mind  advanced  and  gained  power  in  her  resolution  to  care  for  and 
enter  into  all  that  interested  you,  to  be  your  companion  in  everything. 
Many  most  happy  marriages  still  fail  a  little  in  this  ;  the  wife  is  not  her 
husband's  intellectual  companion.  You  have  the  happy  power  to  be 
interested  in  the  views  of  native  good  sense  wherever  you  see  it.  All 
women  feel  stimulated  to  think  their  best  with  you  ;  and  it  was,  I  am  sure, 
one  of  Amelia's  highest  sources  of  happiness  that  there  were  no  subjects  that 
you  treated  as  out  of  her  range.  One  feels,  indeed,  that  a  very  perfect  mar- 
riage of  minds  has  been  dissolved.  Regrets  there  must  be,  though  /  see  no 
cause  for  them,  but  the  lasting  impression  must  be  that  you  made  her  happi- 
ness ;  that,  I  think,  she  would  say  of  herself,  that  she  had  been  fortunate 
beyond  the  common  lot  of  women  in  her  choice. 

"  Elizabeth  is  saying  that  you  cannot  have  many  letters  of  hers,  she  was  so 
seldom  away  from  you.  If  so,  you  have  a  loss  ;  there  was  always  so  much 
in  her  letters,  such  a  large  range  of  interests,  and  remembering  all  the 
things  that  would  interest  her  correspondent — and  all  so  brightly  told. 
How  few  have  her  sparkle  of  wit,  and  what  a  gift  it  is  to  be  remembered  by. 
People  who  knew  her  ever  so  little  have  such  a  keen  remembrance  of  her. 
Mrs.  S.,  with  whom  you  spent  an  evening  here,  has  been  so  deeply  touched 
by  her  death — speaks  in  such  fond  admiring  terms  of  her  look  and  air." 


326 


Letters  of  the 


such  a  one  is  one  of  those  deep  deprivations  which  one  feels 
throughout  whatever  one  is  saying  or  doing. 

I  always  thought  your  dear  child  Alice  expressed  in  her 
countenance  and  air  a  very  interesting  character.  When  she 
was  silent  they  spoke  for  her.  There  was  an  inward  poetry 
and  retiring  thought  in  her  look  which  raised  a  curiosity  in  any 
one  who  saw  her  to  know  what  she  felt,  and  what  was  in  her 
mind.  I  remember  in  her,  as  a  child,  something  of  an  habitual 
mysterious  look,  as  one  might  call  it,  of  which  her  later  face 
still  preserved  the  record  ;  but  there  was  no  gloom  in  it — it  was 
only  a  token  of  the  peculiar  presence  of  the  religious  sense. 
When  such  an  one  is  physically  weak  it  only  deepens  affection 
for  her,  and  the  care  of  her  possesses  the  whole  heart.  The  loss 
is  all  the  greater  and  more  penetrating.  May  you  be  comforted 
under  it.  My  best  wishes  to  Mary  and  Mr.  Wilkinson.- — ■ 
Yours,  most  sincerely,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

This  letter  drew  from  the  bereaved  mother  an  account  of  her 
daughter's  last  hours — a  scene  most  impressive,  as  I  had  heard 
it  immediately  after  the  event  from  her  own  and  her  daughter 
Mary's  lips. 

To  the  Same. 

Shoreham,  October  14,  1872. 

My  dear  Friend, — Your  letter  is  indeed  a  beautiful  picture 
of  a  serene  deathbed,  and  the  consummation  of  a  life.  For  it 
was,  doubtless,  the  simple  reflection  of  a  life.  Everything  was 
done.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  die.  There  is  nothing 
that  reveals  a  life  so  clearly  as  such  a  death.  The  shortness  of 
the  last  scene  does  not  in  the  least  lessen  the  effect  of  it,  because 
it  is  just  like  a  word  or  even  a  look  in  particular  and  critical 
circumstances  of  life,  which  may  tell  everything  in  a  moment. 
There  is  such  a  sure  foundation  shown  in  her. 

I  cannot  but  think  that  the  peaceful  image  of  her  last  years 
will  come  back  upon  you  after  a  time  with  more  of  a  happy 
than  a  painful  feeling.  There  is  so  much  to  rest  upon,  it  will 
bear  so  much  dwelling  on.    And  losses,  too,  change  us,  and 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


327 


change  considerably  our  own  standard  of  happiness,  purifying- 
it  ;  so  that  we  are  able  to  be  more  cheerfully  affected  by  these 
pure  retrospects  and  reflections  than  we  were  before.  "We  are 
more  sensitive  to  chastened  sources  of  happiness. 

I  am  struck  with  your  account  of  her  good  judgment,  and 
the  naturalness  and  facility  with  which  she  used  it.  I  suppose 
it  is  the  disorder  of  our  minds  which  makes  acts  of  judgment 
so  difficult  to  us,  as  a  good  deal  has  to  be  set  to  rights  before 
the  judgment  can  act.  In  some — very  few,  I  think — the  judg- 
ment seems  to  be  always  ready.  There  must  have  been  an 
order  and  a  repose  in  her  mind.  Mere  physical  weakness  does 
not  create  this.  But  peace  of  mind  and  the  quiet  religious 
temper,  of  course,  greatly  favour  the  judgment. 

In  the  case  of  a  loss  that  penetrates  very  deeply  into  us, 
what  we  cannot  master  is  the  kind  of  contradiction  that  death 
is.  I  might  almost  say  the  fact  of  death.  The  person  is  only  a 
moment  gone  from  us,  and  yet  she  is  no  more  in  this  world.  It 
is  a  kind  of  discord  in  the  mind.  Certainly  the  reign  of  Death 
in  the  world  must  be  said  to  begin  first  in  survivors,  and  in 
their  whole  state  of  mind,  which  is  their  separation  from  the 
living — living  up  to  this  moment ;  their  death  to  them. 

May  you  have  your  great  trial  gradually  softened  to  you,  and 
retain,  without  the  present  bitterness  of  the  loss,  all  the  deep 
satisfactions  which  such  a  child's  life  and  death  leave  behind. 
With  all  kindest  recollection  to  your  husband  and  Mary, 
your  very  sincere  friend,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

J.  B.  M.  to  Mrs.  Wilkinson. 

Ch.  Ch.,  December  20,  1872. 
My  dear  Friend, — I  cannot  but  think  that  that  peculiar  and 
extraordinary  contact  with  death,  which  is  produced  by  the 
departure  of  some  one  very  dear,  is  part  of  a  providence  which 
relates  to  the  person's  life — the  one  who  suffers  the  loss.  I 
mean  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  he  or  she  should  come  into 
a  remarkable  experience  of  pain  for  the  departure  of  a  human 
soul  from  this  world,  should  be  made  to  feel  the  full  force  of 
regret,  and  thus  experience  the  power  of  death,  and,  as  it  were, 
pass  under  His  hands  and  His  stroke  even  in  this  life.    If  we 


328 


Letters  of  the 


consider  how  many  near  relations  and  friends,  for  whom  we 
feel  affection,  pass  away  from  this  world,  and  we  mourn  them, 
but  do  not  feel  that  settled  hold  of  a  deep  regret  which  affects 
our  whole  minds — if  we  consider,  I  say,  how  much  death  takes 
place  near  us  without  bringing  us  into  any  deep  inward 
contact  with  it,  and  making  us  feel  the  whole  fact  of  the 
dispensation  of  death  under  which  we  live,  we  see  a  peculiar 
reason  why,  upon  some  special  occasion,  this  extraordinary 
experience  should  be  imparted  to  us. 

Persons  cannot  perhaps  fully  account  in  all  cases  for  the 
effect  of  a  death  upon  them ;  in  some  they  can ;  but  in  others 
they  might  ask  themselves  why  there  has  been  so  remarkable 
an  effect  in  this  case,  and  they  might  not  be  able  to  satisfy 
themselves  wholly.  But  even  when  we  can,  there  yet  seems 
to  be  a  supplementary  reason  for  the  deep  penetrating  kind  of 
regrets  when  they  do  come,  in  the  thought  that  it  is  the  will  of 
God  that  we  should  at  one  time  or  another  come  into  contact 
with  the  full  reality  of  that  dispensation  of  death  under  which 
He  has  been  pleased  to  place  us. 

In  no  part  of  God's  providence  does  the  wisdom  of  its 
balance  appear  more  strikingly,  I  think,  than  in  connection 
with  the  fact  of  Death.  When  I  say  so  many  deaths  take 
place,  even  in  our  own  near  circle,  without  strongly — I  mean 
in  comparison — disturbing  us,  I  do  not  say  it  in  the  sense  of 
blame.  The  business  of  life  requires  that,  accompanied  with  all 
seriousness,  there  must  be  an  easy  natural  recovery  from  these 
losses  generally,  even  in  our  own  circle  of  relationship.  It  is 
a  part  of  providence  that  it  should  be  so.  But  that  seems  to  be 
so  much  the  more  reason  for  special  visitations  of  sorrow,  when 
they  come.  And  these  deep  experiences  of  loss  and  of  a  depar- 
ture, when  they  are  imparted,  may  rectify  a  defect  which  may 
attach  to  our  ordinary  comparative  immunity  from  the  bitter 
kind  of  grief.  Though  even  to  these  visitations  there  is  a  law 
of  relief,  and  providence  softens  them  when  they  have  answered 
their  purpose. 

I  suggest  this  consideration  to  you,  as  so  great  a  sufferer 
from  the  regret  for  one  departed,  because  it  has  a  relieving  ten- 
dency to  feel  that  there  is  a  purpose  answered  by  any  visita- 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozky,  D.D. 


329 


tion  we  are  under,  to  which  we  can  give  some  distinctness  and 
definiteness,  and  that  we  connect  our  grief  with  something 
special  in  the  scope  of  God's  providence  for  us,  and  bring  it 
into  clearer  harmony  with  His  plan  of  education  for  us.  .  .  . 
Your  most  sincere  friend,  J.  B.  M. 

After  bereavement,  or  indeed  any  great  absorbing  trial,  the 
power  of  reading — of  taking  an  interest  in  books — is  a  step 
many  have  welcomed.  The  first  book  that  engages  their  atten- 
tion, after  a  long,  troubled  interval,  is  invested  with  an  interest 
that  it  could  hardly  otherwise  have  won,  and  takes  a  stand  in 
the  memory  as  an  event.  With  the  opening  of  a  new  year  my 
brother's  correspondence  shows  that  this  step  had  been  taken. 
He  writes  of  books  : — 

To  his  Sister. 

January  9,  1873. 

The  revival  of  the  Hares,  after  so  long  a  break,  is  curious, 
and  says  a  good  deal  for  the  vigour  of  the  family.  I  take  to 
the  book.  I  have  only  read  the  first  volume.  Maria  Leycester 
is  attractive  in  character  and  in  style.  In  the  early  portrait 
I  thought  I  detected  a  certain  likeness  to  Jane ;  the  hair 
of  a  certain  date  gives,  perhaps,  or  aids  a  resemblance.  It 
was  village  life  and  aristocratical  clerical  life  put  before  one 
rather  suddenly,  as  a  re-awakened  scene,  and  without  any  dis- 
agreeable features  or  pretensions  to  excite  one's  hostility.  It 
was  curious  to  think  of  her  as  Stanley's  aunt. 

The  Hares  were  men  of  conversation,  and  won  their  ground 
by  that  power — wonderful  life,  vivacity,  and  affectionateness. 
Julius  died  just  before  I  came  into  this  diocese,  otherwise  he 
would  have  been  my  archdeacon.  .  .  .  His  vicarage  was  filled 
with  persons  from  London  and  the  literary  world  :  Bunsen 
often  there — a  sort  of  open  house  kept ;  he  talking  endlessly,  and 
bringing  out  all  his  reading.  I  heard  Augustus  preach  in  New 
College  Chapel,  on  Trinity  Sunday,  on  my  first  visit  to  Oxford, 
when  I  went  up  to  stand  for  Corpus.  I  remember  his  peculi- 
arity of  voice,  and  also  the  general  quality  of  his  sermon ;  its 
elocpaent  philosophical  language,  which  I  recollect  inspired  me 


330 


Letters  of  the 


with  a  sort  of  ambition.  The  subject  was  that  of  the  day — 
the  incomprehensible  nature  of  the  Deity. 

We  have  just  been  passing  through  a  time  of  the  departure 
of  great  names.  Lytton  Bulwer  recalls  one's  early  days.  I 
remember  so  well  Mrs.  W.  describing  him  as  she  saw  him 
from  a  house  window,  in  a  street  procession  at  the  Lincoln 
election.  The  very  beau-ideal  of  youthful  glory  and  intellect, 
and  his  costume  the  quintessence  of  fashion,  his  manners 
superlative  in  their  unruffled  ease  and  condescendingness.  It 
was  the  absolute  perfection  of  a  certain  kind  of  article.  I  was 
always,  however,  stopped  in  his  novels  by  the  want  of  humour. 
It  is  certainly  a  great  want.  And  why  so  perfect  a  man  should 
be  without  it  is  a  mystery,  and,  what  is  worse,  he  tries,  and 
fails.    I  have  been  told  there  is  some  in  My  Novel. 

The  news  about  Pusey  was  at  first  very  alarming,  and  even 
now  the  idea  of  a  vicinity  to  danger  has  not  passed  away. 
His  loss  would  be  a  great  event.  He  is  one  of  those  fulcrums 
and  stays  about  which  people  gather.  His  departure  woidd 
add  to  the  unrestraint  and  disorder  of  the  present  state  of 
tilings. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Mrs.  Wilkinson. 

Shoreham,  January  31,  1873. 
My  dear  Friend, —  ...  I  remember  when  our  President, 
Dr.  Eouth,  died,  making  the  observation  to  myself  that  one  was 
more  surprised  at  the  death  of  old  persons  than  at  the  death 
of  young  ones.  I  mean  that,  though  the  laws  of  nature  prepare 
one  for  it,  when  it  actually  takes  place  it  is  more  of  a  downfall, 
and  what  one  may  call  a  crash,  than  the  younger  death  is. 
There  is  so  much  more  fabric  to  fall  down.    A  loner  life  occu- 

O 

pies  so  much  more  space  in  our  minds ;  it  is  a  large  building 
which  has  gathered  up  into  itself  a  quantity  of  material.  When 
it  falls  there  is  so  much  more  actual  shock  to  our  mental  senses, 
it  is  so  great  a  departure.  I  compare  it,  of  course,  to  a  shorter 
life  in  the  same  relation  to  us  ;  it  may  be  only  that  of  a  public 
man,  or  a  member  of  the  same  society  with  us.  The  old  man 
does,  by  his  very  length  of  life,  root  himself  in  us,  so  that  the 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


longer  he  lives,  the  longer,  we  think,  he  must  live ;  and  when 
he  dies  it  is  a  kind  of  violence  to  us. 

I  do  not  know  whether  you  at  all  recognise  this  aspect  of  the 
departure  of  a  long  life,  or  whether  you  partake  of  the  impres- 
sion. I  recollect  I  had  it  very  strongly  when  the  whole  College, 
with  all  its  train  of  past  generations  that  survived,  followed  the 
old  President  to  the  grave.  The  majestic  music  and  solemn 
wailings  of  the  choir  seemed  to  mourn  over  some  great  edifice 
that  had  fallen,  and  left  a  vast  void,  which  looked  quite 
strange  and  unaccountable  to  one. 

But  what  I  want  to  say  now  is  that  intimacy,  sympathy, 
constant  care  for  another,  constant  affectionate  observation  of 
another,  seem  to  have  the  effect  of  length  of  time  in  the  deep 
root  they  give  to  a  life  within  your  own  mind.  The  object  of 
such  watchings  and  tendings,  so  much  thought  and  concern, 
fills  so  much  space  in  your  mind,  that  if  it  goes,  there  is  a  vast 
empty  space,  which  appals  by  its  strangeness. 

It  may  be  short  in  years,  but  it  is  a  long  life  in  the  affec- 
tions, in  the  quantity  of  care,  acts  of  love,  wishes,  hopes  it  has 
called  forth,  the  amount  of  mind  in  you  it  has  exercised ; 
what  you  have  done  reacts  upon  you,  and  forms  an  impress 
which  stays,  and  which  will  stay,  though  there  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  survive  the  painful  stage,  and  enter  upon  a 
calm  and  harmonious  one,  when  the  great  discord  will  cease. — 
Your  very  sincere  friend,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  his  Sister. 

March  28,  1873. 
Your  copy  of  Middlcmarch  was  a  great  treat — so  much  char- 
acter and  humour  in  it.  The  satirical  vein  has,  I  think,  grown 
upon  the  author ;  and  I  suppose  it  is  in  its  nature  to  do  so.  She 
lias  a  fine,  or  intended  to  be  fine,  character  or  two,  and  all  the 
rest  is  for  the  purpose  of  showing  up.  She  is  certainly  au  fait 
at  the  whole  vulgar  side  of  the  middle  classes — all  their  customs 
of  mind  and  thought,  points  of  view,  their  sense  of  grievance, 
retaliations,  etc.  Especially  does  she  take  off  their  flatnesses 
and  modes  of  speaking  about  subjects  above  them,  literature, 


332 


Letters  of  the 


poetry,  etc. ;  as,  for  example,  Mr.  Borthrop  Trumbull,  who  is  a 
clever  fellow  in  his  own  department.  She  quite  soars  in  flat- 
ness ;  and  when  one  thinks  she  has  got  as  far  as  can  be  reached, 
ascends  to  celestial  summits. 

I  observe  she  has  a  favourite  in  a  certain  rather  old-fashioned 
clerical  character,  as  Mr.  Cadwallader  and  Mr.  Farebrother. 
She  must  have  known  them,  and  come  across  clergy  in  her 
youth.  Mr.  Brookes  is  excellent,  and  new.  But  Casaubon 
appears  the  most  studied  character.  It  is  capital ;  all  har- 
monises ; — the  sort  of  refinement  he  has,  and  his  dulness  and 
pitiable  incarceration  in  his  labyrinth  and  winding-stairs,  unable 
to  get  out  of  the  sepulchre  in  which  he  lives.  Then  the  spite- 
fulness  of  the  latent  sort,  occasionally  creeping  out  of  its  hole ; 
and  his  inability  to  receive  sympathy,  and  total  incongruity  to 
Dorothea  gradually  coming  out ;  and  his  inward  protest  at  the 
want  of  appreciation  of  him,  and  suspicion  that  the  Arch- 
deacon had  not  read  his  pamphlet.  Altogether  it  is  quite  a 
whole,  and  it  is  new.  As  a  piece  of  satire,  however,  it  comes  out 
rather  late,  as  learning  is  now  almost  abandoned  ;  and  if  a  man 
begins  to  suspect  he  is  getting  into  the  mud,  and  to  stick 
anywhere,  he  rushes  out  as  quick  as  he  can.  Dorothea  is 
striking  in  this  point  of  view,  that  she  is  of  the  perfect  type, 
and  yet  attractive,  which  perfect  characters  so  very  seldom 
are — generally  being  instances  of  the  law  that,  humanly  speak- 
ing, perfection  is  dry,  and  that  you  want  faults  to  be  interesting. 
And  it  is  remarkable  that  she  manages  to  make  the  character 
without  the  character  saying  much,  as  Dorothea  is  not  much 
before  us  as  a  speaker.  I  must  say,  however,  that  she  spoils 
Dorothea  a  good  deal,  if  not  degrades  her  from  her  high 
place,  by  her  after-treatment  of  her,  making  her  fall  in  love 
with  what  Mrs.  Cadwallader  very  justly  calls  the  Italian  boy 
with  white  mice.  For,  although  [she  makes  him  shake  his 
hair  and  coruscate  with  electric  sparks,  Mrs.  C.'s  view  of  him 
prevails.  He  is  too  conceited  and  impudent  a  young  fellow 
to  be  fastened  on  to  Dorothea.  It  shows  a  want  in  the 
writer's  mind.  I  take  to  Mrs.  Cadwallader,  and  she  is  done 
to  the  life,  but  I  daresay  one  likes  her  better  in  a  novel 
than  one  would  have  done  in  reality.  .  .  .  All  satirists,  of 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


333 


course,  work  in  the  direction  of  Christian  doctrine  by  the 
support  they  give  to  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin — making  a 
sort  of  meanness  and  badness  a  law  of  society.  I  have  made 
this  the  subject  of  one  of  my  lectures,  but  it  is  of  the  very 
roughest  workmanship.  Miss  Evans's  pictures  will  only  end 
in  aiding  the  Evidences  of  Christian  doctrine,  much  as  she  may 
protest  against  it.  I  think  her  enmity  to  the  middle  classes 
must  be  partly  from  the  fixity  of  their  belief ;  being  the  class 
of  all  society  least  open  to  the  disturbing  force  of  new  ideas 
whether  of  belief  or  morals. 

To  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 

June,  13,  1873. 

I  can  hardly  wish  you  too  quickly  over  the  convalescent 
state — the  becoming  well  again — as  it  is,  I  think,  a  singularly 
enjoyable  bit  of  life — far  more  than  being  actually  well  and 
vulgarly  strong.  I  remember  recovering  from  a  fever  a  great 
many  years  ago,  which  took  some  two  or  three  months ;  and 
there  certainly  was  a  sensation  of  life,  and  an  extreme  suscepti- 
bility to  all  natural  enjoyments  of  mind  and  body,  which  one 
has  not  in  regular  health.  ...  I  see  you  are  in  the  middle  of 
the  Cathedral  reform  subject.  I  thought  Goulburn's  pamphlet 
took  the  proper  line,  but  he  appeared  to  assume  the  existence  of 
a  strong  movement  in  the  direction  of  a  coarser  change,  with 
official  work  and  diocesan  department  to  manage ;  in  other 
words,  to  help  the  Bishops.  The  age  seems  to  be  quite  set  in 
this  line,  and  not  to  be  able  to  trust  work  of  a  less  tangible 
kind.  They  will  get  a  good  deal  of  professional  activity,  but 
the  whole  will  be  a  fall  for  the  English  Church. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  Mrs.  Wilkinson. 

Ch.  Ch.,  August  30,  1873. 
My  dear  Friend, —  ...  It  is  strange  to  me  to  think  it  is 
a  year  since  the  great  change  in  my  life.  I  used  to  count  the 
weeks,  and  feel  that  I  had  done  a  great  deal  when  I  had  got 
over  so  many.  But  Time  makes  one  feel  one  is  in  a  machine 
which  does  not  stop  in  joy  or  grief. 


334 


Letters  of  the 


After  dwelling  on  some  points  in  his  friend's  letter — changes 
and  losses  of  friends,  and  speaking  of  similar  losses  in  his  own 
recent  experiences — Hope  Scott  and  others — he  ends  them 
with : — 

And  Henry  Wilberforce,  whom  I  knew  so  well.  There  was 
a  thorough  natural  force  and  brilliancy  in  his  wit  which  I  never 
heard  equalled ;  but  I  suppose  he  lacked  the  power  of  work — 
a  defect  which  comes  out  in  subsequent  life.  Copleston,  how- 
ever, when  Provost  of  Oriel,  put  him  above  both  his  brothers. 

I  quite  enter  into  your  remarks  upon  memory,  and  its  pecu- 
liar selection  of  scenes  and  occurrences  for  keeping  its  hold  of, 
which  one  cannot  always  fully  account  for.  But  they  are  very 
valuable  when  they  are  connected  with  old  friends  and  their  tone 
and  character  and  conversation.  They  constitute  a  stock  of 
internal  imagery  which,  in  certain  states  of  mind,  is  very  satis- 
fying and  soothing.  But  memory  is  full  of  peculiar  feats.  T 
was  reminded  of  a  strong  impress  of  memory  myself  the  other 
day,  at  the  ceremonial  at  Keble  College.  I  saw  Miss  Yonge 
the  authoress  once,  when  she  was  fifteen.  It  so  happened  I 
had  always  remembered  her  face,  but  I  never  saw  her  again 
till  a  week  ago  ;  so  I  had  the  recollected  face  and  the  seen  face 
in  clear  comparison.  And  though,  of  course,  time  must  alter, 
as  I  need  not  say,  the  face  came  very  well  out  of  the  trial. 

Edith  is  a  very  lively  and  agreeable  niece,  and  she  has  plenty 
of  good  sense  too.  She  leaves  Oxford  in  a  few  days  now,  as 
soon  as  her  father  and  mother  [Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bonamy  Price], 
whose  house  she  and  her  husband  now  occupy,  return  from 
their  Eastern  travels.  The  girls  [his  nieces  by  marriage]  have 
been  a  great  comfort  to  me  all  along,  and  just  that  sort  of 
interest  which  is  most  suitable. — With  all  kind  remembrances, 
yours  most  sincerely,  J.  B.  Mozley. 

To  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 

Ch.  Ch.,  December  1,  1873. 
.  .  .  The  principal  event  of  the  term,  the  Union  dinner,  I  can 
give  no  account  of,  as  I  had  not  come  up  then,  but  I  have  heard 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


from  Heurtley  the  whole  account  of  his  treatment  by  the 
Committee,  which  seems  to  have  been  of  the  very  obvious  bam- 
boozling kind.  Lord  Salisbury  did  the  best  thing  that  could 
be  done  on  the  occasion — insisting  on  Archbishop  Manning- 
sitting  before  him ;  so  that  a  friendly  contest  of  pushing,  or 
something  like  it,  ensued,  which  was  of  course  turning  the 
whole  thing  into  a  joke,  and  covering  the  degradation  of  the 
Bishops.  There  has  been  nothing  memorable  since,  except  the 
Sunday  of  Pusey  and  Stanley.  Stanley  spoke  against  party 
in  religion — a  daring  thing  for  him  to  do ;  for  I  think  of  all 
men  in  the  world  he  most  uniformly  moulds  all  his  statements 
about  men  and  things  to  his  own  public  religious  ends.  So  in 
this  sermon  he  called  F.  Eobertson,  of  Brighton,  the  greatest 
preacher  of  this  century  ! — a  most  glaringly  party  pedestal  to 
put  Eobertson  upon ;  done  simply  to  raise  his  own  party  by 
something  which  he  had  at  his  command — a  stroke  of  praise. — 
Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

At  this  time  his  nephew,  H.  W.  Mozley,  was  bringing  out 
a  translation  of  Dante's  Inferno,  in  terza-rima,  in  the  Monthly 
Packet. 

To  his  Sister. 

January  19,  1874. 
From  my  small  knowledge  of  Dante's  translators,  I  should 
say  that  Harry's  translation  has  its  decided  points  of  superi- 
ority over  others.  It  seems  to  me  the  genuine  Dantean  verve 
comes  up  sometimes  more  faithfully  in  it  than  in  any  other 
translations  I  have  read.  The  too-constant  penultimate  rhymes 
are  perhaps  a  defect  which  could  not  be  guarded  against,  and 
which  must  be  taken  as  included  in  the  difficulty  of  the  original 
condition.  It  is  some  twenty  years  since  I  looked  into  the 
Inferno  in  the  original,  but  I  find  the  translation  often  brings 
back  my  first  fresh  acquaintance  with  Dante — the  keen  pic- 
torial outline  which  the  descriptions  and  similes  have  so  well 
preserved. 

The  Dantean  devils  are  an  extraordinary  difference  from  the 


336 


Letters  of  the 


Miltonic;  but  in  estimating  the  magnitude  of  this  difference 
we  must  remember  that  Dante  does  not  describe  Satan,  or 
make  him  speak.  I  wonder  how  he  would  have  done  it.  I 
think  Satan  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  great  pit,  but  entirely 
dumb  and  stationary.  But  his  devils  are  the  contemptible 
ones  of  the  Middle  Ages.  This  translation  gives  them  very 
faithfully  and  vividly.  There  is  a  dreadful  emptiness  and 
void  in  them,  and  a  misery  to  which  cruelty  appears  the  only 
sedative,  and  they  enjoy  a  horrible  momentary  glee  while  they 
torture  somebody  ;  but  they  pay  for  it  by  a  frightful,  torment- 
ing, restless  vacuity  immediately  afterwards.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  sort  of  humour  about  them,  and  a  gregariousness  which 
has  something  social  about  it,  and  a  kind  of  obedience  to  their 
own  authorities. 

I  hope  Harry  will  publish  as  a  whole ;  the  work  will  tell 
more  than  it  does  coming  out  in  bits,  and  it  will  be  a  challenge 
to  criticism,  which  he  need  not,  I  think,  be  afraid  of. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  his  sister  he  describes  a  friend  endowed  with  what  he 
calls  a  mental  physique  ;  that  is,  gifted  with  that  conversational 
power  from  which,  all  his  life,  he  derived  so  much  pleasure 
as  a  listener  : — 

"  She  was  a  remarkable  specimen  of  a  person  endowed  with 
a  mental  physique  which  is  something  between  the  world  of 
bodily  perfections  and  mental ;  that  is,  it  has  great  gifts  of 
description  and  imagination,  and  strength  to  use  them.  She 
could  not  but  be  a  conspicuous  figure  in  any  circle  in  which 
she  took  part.  But  her  sphere  of  talk  was  human  life.  There 
she  was  at  home,  in  its  domestic  points,  vicissitudes,  and  char- 
acter. One  always  seemed  to  be  listening  to  some  one  who 
had  the  threads  of  history  in  her  hands.  She  could  manage 
plots  and  unwind  them,  and  there  was  a  moral  tone  in  her 
dramas.  Such  a  person  accompanies  the  train  of  events  with 
which  she  is  concerned  like  an  interpreter — explaining  them 
to  outside  spectators,  who  see  them  with  only  dim,  confused 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


eyes.  Indeed,  how  very  meagrely  do  the  mass  of  people  see 
what  goes  on  around  them — in  a  scattered  way,  just  the  bits 
as  they  happen,  but  they  cannot  put  them  together.  A  person 
cannot  fulfil  such  a  position  as  this  without  an  extraordinary 
ability  to  take  interest  in  people  around.  It  is  a  kind  of  life 
led  in  sympathy  with  all  that  happens.  How  very  few  care 
enough  about  others  to  spend  their  breath  upon  them.  .  .  . 
She  was  charged  with  something  to  which  she  gave  life, 
language,  and  energy ;  but  what  work  it  would  have  been  to 
anybody  but  her ! " 

To  ins  Sister. 

July  18,  1874. 

I  have  made  a  beginning  of  Patteson.  Perhaps  more  letters 
are  given  than  is  necessary  to  find  out  what  he  is,  and  how  much 
stuff  he  has  in  him.  .  .  .  He  is  certainly  a  worker,  and  quick 
at  his  work.  As  near  as  I  can  make  out,  he  acquired  in  one 
year  the  Maori  language  and  the  art  of  navigation, — the  former 
enough  to  preach  a  sermon,  and  the  latter  sufficient  to  enable 
him  to  officiate  as  captain  of  a  ship  in  a  storm.  I  confess  this, 
to  my  mind,  raises  a  high  notion  of  his  powers  of  work.  With 
respect  to  the  Maori  sermon,  the  auditors  might  perhaps  inter- 
pose with  criticisms,  but  the  feat  of  navigation  is  its  own 
evidence.  His  sense  of  humour  and  the  picturesque  comes  out 
certainly  most  in  contact  with  savage  nature,  so  as  to  inti- 
mate some  secret  impulse  which  took  him  out  there ;  as,  for 
example,  his  description  of  the  cliffs  of  Valua,  and  the  swarm- 
ing natives  clustering  upon  them,  and  the  curious  idea  it  was 
to  him  to  find  himself  "  walking  arm  in  arm  with  a  Nongone 
gentleman  stark  naked,"  asking  him  questions  about  various 
ladies,  mutual  acquaintances.  .  .  . 

I  read  Unawares  as  I  came  up  [a  book  I  had  given  him  to 
read  on  a  journey].  There  is  a  great  deal  of  good,  lively, 
pleasant  description  in  it,  especially  of  French  towns,  and  very 
characteristic.  Deshoulieres  is  well  done,  his  awkwardness  and 
goodness ;  and  Therese  is  made  interesting  by  a  few  touches. 
The  plot  is  too  much  gathered  up  into  a  knot  at  the  end,  and 
would  bear  more  expansion.  .  .  .  Miss  Peard's  little  moral 

Y 


Letters  of  the 


remarks  are  very  good  and  striking  sometimes. — Yours  affec- 
tionately, J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 

Ch.  Ch.,  November  6,  1874. 
My  dear  Church, — I  have  to  forward  to  you  the  particular 
request  of  the  University  Missionary  Association,  that  you 
would  undertake  the  sermon  on  the  Day  of  Intercession,  which 
will  he  this  year  St.  Andrew's  Day.  .  .  .  This  is  a  new  associa- 
tion, set  up  last  term.  It  is  intended  to  add  to  the  ordinary 
missionary  objects  some  encouragement  of  literary  and  intel- 
lectual work  and  thought,  inquiring  into  the  character  of  native 
races,  attention  to  language,  making  acquaintance  with  natives 
who  show  a  wish  to  acquaint  themselves  with  us — rather  vague 
and  dim  at  present,  hut  what  may  work  up  into  something 
useful.  We  have  a  committee  which  meets  from  time  to  time  ; 
we  collect  books,  magazines,  native  papers,  etc.,  and  hope  to 
create  an  interest  in  the  subject  in  under-graduates.  The 
Bishop  of  Zanzibar,  as  he  is  to  be,  is  here  now,  and  is  taking 
out  one  good  man — James  of  Oriel,  nephew  of  the  late  Bishop 
AVilberforce.  So  the  Provost  resigns.  It  is  quite  an  historical 
fact.  At  present  he  appears  as  active  as  ever,  and  he  has  only 
a  prospective  regard  to  his  health.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

To  the  Eev.  Francis  A.  Faber. 

Old  Shoreham,  January  1875. 
My  dear  Faber, —  .  .  .  What  a  kettle  of  fish  this  Arch- 
bishop's Bill  is  !  In  its  present  shape  I  do  not  see  any  particu- 
lar harm  in  it,  or  any  very  striking  advantage  either.  Whatever 
could  have  given  the  Bishops  any  unfair  power  seems  to  have 
been  taken  out  of  the  Bill.  Koundell  Palmer  has  come  out  in 
a  manner  that  suits  him — honest  and  straightforward.  I  could 
not  but  sympathise  with  his  letter,  which  seemed  to  me  sub- 
stantially true.  One  hardly  knows  what  is  to  become  of  it  all. 
And  Gladstone's  resolutions  are  a  smasher.  I  think  what  pro- 
vokes Gladstone  is  the  apparently  retrogressive  character  of  the 
bill,  bringing  an  Act  of  Parliament  again  to  help  the  Church. 
The  thing  looks  obsolete  to  him. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


339 


I  find  the  term  at  Oxford  gets  fuller  of  work.  There  is  so 
much  collateral  work  of  all  kinds  in  which  you  must  join. 
New  societies  are  set  up.  We  established  last  term  a  Univer- 
sity Association,  which  I  hope  will  do  good.  It  aims  at  col- 
lecting a  missionaiy  library,  and  encouraging  the  residence  of 
natives  in  the  University.  .  .  .  Church,  at  St.  Paul's,  is  in  a 
difficulty  with  his  plan  of  ornamentation — everything  so  full 
of  obstructions.  Stanley  preached  twice  last  term.  I  thought 
his  tone  rather  modified  and  subdued  by  Burgon's  opposition, 
though  it  was  not  successful.  He  is  somewhat  tamed,  and,  in 
taming  him,  B.  has  taken  some  spirit  out  of  him.  Kindest 
remembrance  to  Mrs.  Faber. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  Mozley. 

On  some  personal  ground,  an  old  letter  having  been  sent 
to  him,  which  happened  to  contain  a  spirited  account  of  a  party 
of  Clarkson's  friends  discussing  the  Life  of  Wilbcrforce,  just 
published  by  his  sons,  he  writes  : — 

To  his  Sister. 

January  19,  1875. 

It  was  quite  a  treat  to  read  a  letter  of  Mrs.  Wayland's.  Such 
perfection  of  statement,  the  thought  so  full  and  so  clear.  I 
always  feel  proud  of  her  good  opinion,  and  should  have 
regarded  it  as  a  great  advantage  if  she  had  lived  longer 
to  act  her  friendly  part.  I  remember  the  Clarkson  dispute, 
and  this  very  letter,  and  the  whole  impression  it  made.  I  think 
it  may  be  called  a  permanent  impression.  For,  great  man  as 
one  of  the  Wilberforces  was,  and  all  of  them  were  superior,  there 
was  a  certain  tendency  to  insolence  in  them.  The  two  elder 
were  alone  concerned  in  the  publication  of  the  Memoirs.  How 
strange  it  should  be  such  a  failure  ! 

What  a  transition  in  the  material  of  public  interest !  Glad- 
stone's abdication,  then  his  Quarterly  article,  and  the  Pope's 
scurrility  ;  J.  H.  N.,1  etc.  etc.    Theology  certainly  is  master  of 

1  His  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  in  answer  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  "Poli- 
tical Expostulation,"  entitled,  The  Vatican  Decrees. 


34Q 


Letters  of  the 


the  scene.  Most  amusing  the  articles  in  The  Times,  especially 
the  one  to-day.  It  is  quite  a  true  view  of  the  Pope's  style  and 
its  origin,  and  so  naturally  introduced,  and  travel  made  use  of. 
It  must  have  an  effect,  the  head  of  the  Church  heing  brought 
in  to  receive  such  a  very  rough  reception.  It  must  tend  to 
loosen  the  anchorage  of  men's  ideas. 

As  for  what  is  to  become  of  Gladstone  in  politics,  it  is  beyond 
conjecture.  One  cannot  believe  he  can  sink.  He  continues  in 
Parliament.  I  can  fancy  it  ending  in  a  higher  position  than  any 
he  has  yet  had  ;  he  seems  to  have  such  elasticity  and  spring. 
It  must  be  immensely  disagreeable  to  be  Premier  (on  his  own 
side)  under  his  exclusion.  Altogether  it  is  a  most  singular 
posture  of  affairs.  The  ordinary  Liberal  statesmen  do  seem 
conventional  figures  compared  with  Gladstone.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

To  ins  Sister. 

Ch.  Ch.,  March  G,  1875. 
I  saw  something  of  a  remarkable  girl  before  I  left  Shoreham 
— a  daughter  of  an  old  friend  of  Amelia's  and  mine ;  I  daresay 
you  have  heard  A.  talk  of  her.  The  daughter  was  on  her  death- 
bed when  I  came  up  at  Christmas,  having  been  seized  with 
rheumatic  fever,  and  then  with  galloping  consumption.  Every- 
thing about  her  was  full  of  sadness,  except  herself.  She  was  so 
natural,  so  bright,  so  courageous  ;  it  was  quite  a  marvel.  I  had 
seen  nothing  of  her  for  some  years,  as  she  had  been  out  at  place, 
and  not  fine  places  at  all ;  but  she  had  shot  up  remarkably. 
She  talked  well,  had  quite  a  style,  a  peculiarly  light  touch  of 
everything,  and  I  should  almost  say  elegant ;  quite  a  lady  in 
manners,  though  talking  always  about  things  within  her  sphere. 
She  had  ideas — at  least  I  call  it  thus — getting  up  in  bed  to  look 
at  the  setting  sun.  She  saw  quite  the  proper  joke  in  her 
brother  George  nursing  his  baby.  You  could  not  have  sup- 
posed that  anything  was  impending  over  her.  Yet  she  saw 
her  weakness  growing,  and  faced  all  the  symptoms  of  approach- 
ing death.  She  just  took  up  the  glass  of  water  on  her  table, 
and,  looking  significantly,  said  :  "  It 's  very  heavy."    It  was 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


341 


the  most  vivid  way  of  describing  weakness  in  its  effects.  She 
had  a  striking  thankfulness  about  every  little  thing.  It  seemed 
a  constant  happiness  to  her.  One  remembers  the  expression : 
"  The  incense-breathing  morn ;"  there  was  quite  a  fragrance  in 
her  gratitude.  It  was  like  music,  every  expression  of  her 
feelings  was  so  clear.  I  have  not  given  her  name — Louisa 
Burtenshaw.    She  was  only  eighteen. 

I  have  had  to  entertain  a  deputation  from  Liverpool,  who 
came  up  to  appeal  to  the  youth  of  the  University.  They  want 
men  [missionaries] ;  money  they  have,  and  are  ready  to  supply 
salaries  liberally.  Espin,  Chancellor  of  the  Diocese,  headed 
them,  and  spoke  at  a  public  meeting.  Five  young  men  called 
and  offered  themselves — very  well  as  a  first-fruits.  Two  lay- 
men were  of  the  party,  pleasant,  gentlemanly  men,  with  interests 
of  the  highest  sort.  .  .  .  Yours  affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

It  may  be  remarked,  the  strong  hold  the  thought  of  death 
and  its  approaches  had  always  had  upon  my  brother,  the  feel- 
ing of  equality  the  thought  dwelt  upon  inspired,  and  how 
this  feeling  gained  depth  as  years  went  on.  The  following 
notes  to  the  dying  girl  have  been  preserved  by  her  mother. 
They  show  how  little  directly  didactic  his  turn  of  mind  was, 
how  ready  he  was  to  feel  himself  a  learner  in  the  presence  of 
one  close  on  the  portals  of  the  unseen. 

To  Louisa  Burtenshaw. 

Fcbrxiary  6,  1875. 
My  dear  Louisa, — You  know  we  agreed  that  people  might 
think  of  one  another  a  great  deal,  though  they  might  be  a  long 
way  off.  So  I  write  these  few  lines  only  to  say  that  I  have 
been  thinking  much  of  you.  I  saw  with  what  sweetness  of 
mind,  with  what  religious  courage,  with  what  faith  and  trust 
in  God  you  took  your  great  trial.  It  is  the  same  now,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  your  peace  continues,  as  you  now  send  me 
word.  And  so  it  will  continue  ;  God  will  ever  watch  over  you 
to  give  you  happy  and  good  thoughts.    "  The  Shepherd  calleth 


342 


Letters  of  the 


His  own  sheep  by  name,  and  He  goeth  before  them,  and  the 
sheep  follow  Him  ;  for  they  know  His  voice." 

Good-bye,  and  remember  me  in  your  prayers,  as  I  always  do 
you  in  mine.  J.  B.  M. 

Again : — 

...  I  write  to  you  only  to  let  you  know  how  I  have  you 
in  my  thoughts.  I  bike  writing  to  you,  for  while  you  are  before 
me,  you  impart  something  of  your  own  spirit.  You  show  how 
God  has  freed  you  from  gloom  and  fear,  and  what  compensation 
He  has  given  for  thus  early  calling  you.  ...  I  follow  you 
through  your  days  of  restlessness.  What  experience  you  have 
of  illness  !  It  came  upon  you  all  at  once  ;  yet  your  spirit  rose. 
You  knew  that  in  your  trial  God  had  given  you  something  to 
do,  and  that  you  could  do  it,  and  take  everything  as  coming 
from  a  God  of  Love.  Close  to  my  heart  is  the  prayer  that  you 
may  be  carried  safe  through  these  last  few  days  of  trial  into  a 
world  of  rest.  J.  B.  M. 


In  the  spring  of  1875  I  visited  my  brother  at  Christ  Church 
— a  happy  visit.  I  used  the  opportunity  to  press  on  him  the 
publication  of  his  University  Sermons,  going  into  particulars, 
calculations,  etc.,  in  order  to  engage  his  interest  in  the  idea. 
My  sister  Fanny,  who  was  earnest  on  the  point,  writes :  "  If 
you  can  persuade  James  to  publish  his  sermons  you  will  have 
done  a  good  work  in  going  to  Oxford."  This  is  mentioned  to 
account  for  his  subsequent  revival  of  the  point  under  a  change 
of  circumstances. 

At  this  time  my  brother's  Graduate  Class,  for  whom  the 
lectures  on  the  Old  Testament  were  composed,  was  meeting  at 
his  own  house — lectures  read  by  members  of  the  class  alter- 
nating with  his  own.  He  took  very  great  pleasure  in  this 
class,  speaking  with  strong  regard  of  its  members,  and  forming 
high  hopes  of  their  future,  who  in  their  turn  showed  their 
appreciation.    "  James  testifies,"  says  one  letter,  "  to  the  fixity 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


of  purpose  in  Mr.  Wordsworth  ;  inexorable  in  keeping  up  the 
meetings  through  all  the  distractions  of  this  term."  1 

From  Shoreham  he  paid  a  short  visit  to  Mrs.  Eickards,  now- 
settled  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds. 

To  his  Sistee. 

August  2,  1875. 
I  had  three  active  talking  days  with  Mrs.  Eickards,  from 
Saturday  afternoon  till  Tuesday  noon.  She  was  full  of  mental 
activity,  though  slightly  impaired  bodily,  having  taken  to  a 
chair — calling  and  receiving  calls.  She  keeps  up  her  con- 
nection with  her  old  neighbourhood.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Eickards' 
establishment  is  a  remarkable  one,  as  you  know,  containing 
one  partial  lunatic,  whom  she  has  had  to  conquer,  and  has 
done  it  very  successfully.  She  [the  lunatic]  seems  well  now, 
only  showing  some  vestiges  of  her  complaint,  in  a  suppressed 
dislike  of  Mrs.  Eickards,  and  also  of  her  sister,  the  chief  ser- 
vant, but  otherwise  behaving  admirably.  ...  I  am  glad  to 

1  The  reader  will  be  interested  to  know  the  names  of  some  who  attended 
the  Graduate  Class  during  the  years  1874-1875.  The  following  list  has  been 
sent  to  the  Editor  :— 

R.  S.  Copleston,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  now  Bishop  of  Colombo. 
L.  G.  Mylne,  Tutor  of  Keble  College,  now  Bishop  of  Bombay. 

E.  S.  Talbot,  Warden  of  Keble  College. 

H.  S.  Holland,  Senior  Student  of  Christ  Church,  now  Canon  of  St.  Paul's. 
J.  Wordsworth,  Tutor  of  Brasenose  College,  now  Oriel  Professor  of 
Exegesis. 

M.  Creighton,  Fellow  of  Merton  College,  now  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical 

History  at  Cambridge. 
A.  H.  D.  Acland,  Lecturer  of  Keble  College,  now  Senior  Student  of 

Ch.  Ch. 

J.  R.  Illingworth,  Fellow  of  Jesus  College,  now  Vicar  of  Longworth. 

F.  J.  Jayne,  Tutor  of  Keble  College,  now  Principal  of  St.  David's  College, 
Lampeter. 

W.  Lock,  Fellow  of  Magdalen  College,  and  Tutor  of  Keble  College. 
A.  C.  Madan,  Senior  Student  of  Ch.  Ch. 

R.  C.  Moberly,  Senior  Student  of  Ch.  Ch.,  now  Vicar  of  Great  Bud- 
worth. 

F.  Paget,  Senior  Student  of  Ch.  Ch. ,  now  Rector  of  Bromsgrove. 

W.  T.  Richmond,  Lecturer  at  Keble  College,  now  Warden  of  Trinity 

College,  Glenalmond. 
J.  W.  Stanbridge,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  now  Rector  of  Bainton. 
E.  D.  Whitmaish,  D.C.L.,  St.  John's  College. 


344 


Letters  of  the 


have  possessed  myself  of  Jemima's  work,  which  is  most  suitable 
for  our  own  Sunday  wants,  and  such  a  fit  remembrance  of 
Jemima,  and  of  the  quantity  of  delightful  playing  which  I 
have  heard  from  her.  ...  I  shall  try  to  see  my  friend  Faber 
on  Friday,  whom  I  have  not  seen  for  some  time.  .  .  .  Yours 
affectionately,  J.  B.  M. 

One  of  the  charms  of  Old  Shoreham  to  my  brother  was  the 
Downs.  The  following  letter  relates  to  a  characteristic  of  such 
scenery  : — 

To  his  Sister  Elizabeth. 

September  13,  1875. 
My  dear  Elizabeth, — I  must  confess  it  is  a  long  time  to  go 
back  to  attempt  to  renew  the  subject  of  a  very  small  literary 
conflict  which  I  once  had  with  you.  So  much  so,  that  I  may 
appear  guilty  of  breaking  all  the  statutes  of  limitation  that 
ever  were  framed.  Nevertheless,  I  will  state  that,  I  think, 
about  ten  years  ago,  you  disputed  an  allusion  of  mine  to  a 
poetical  fact  that  skylarks  enjoyed  the  title  of  "  Drunken," 
bestowed  upon  them  in  token  of  their  elevated  and  merry  style 
of  singing.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  was  not  taking  advan- 
tage of  such  a  beautiful  extravaganza  to  insinuate  a  motive. 
However,  I  understood  you  to  doubt  the  fact  that  the  epithet 
had  been  applied.  I  had  an  idea  that  it  must  be  Shelley  or 
Tennyson ;  it  was  not  in  either,  and  curiously,  when  he  was  so 
obvious  a  poet  to  try,  I  didn't  go  to  Wordsworth.  The  other 
day  I  turned  upon  his  poem  to  the  Lark 1  by  mere  accident, 
and  saw  the  veritable  epithet,  with  a  capital  D.,  vol.  ii.  p.  29. 
The  Downs  are  much  favoured  with  the  inspiration  of  the 
lark,  which  accounts  for  their  place  in  poetry  having  met  with 
such  attention  on  my  part. 

In  November  1875,  during  my  brother's  residence  at  Christ 
Church,  came  the  shock  of  his  seizure,  which  he  at  once 
recognised  for  what  it  was.  He  did  not  lose  consciousness, 
and  told  the  attendant  who  had  been  waiting  on  him  at  break- 

1  The  poem  beginning  "  Up  with  me  !  up  with  me  into  the  clouds !  " 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


345 


fast,  and  was  now  robing  him,  not  to  be  frightened,  and  that 
he  must  have  a  doctor.  The  details  of  illness  are  not  in  place 
here.  All  that  care  and  tenderness  on  the  part  of  those  around 
him,  and  his  own  patience  and  submission  could  do  to  sustain 
him  under  the  trial,  was  done.  He  was  open  to  every  allevia- 
tion, though  deeply  aware  of  the  nature  of  the  attack,  and  what 
might  be  its  consequences  :  still  not  without  cheering  hope  of 
recovery  as  time  went  on  and  he  gained  strength.  He  now 
decided,  unprompted,  to  bring  out  his  University  Sermons, 
and  early  in  December  wrote  to  Messrs.  Eivington  on  the 
subject,  saying  that  his  sister  would  carry  on  the  correspon- 
dence with  them,  of  course  under  his  direction.  As  the 
University  Sermons  had  undergone  his  own  careful  scrutiny, 
there  was  no  presumption  in  undertaking  such  a  charge — one 
most  welcome  on  its  own  account. 

My  two  youngest  sisters,  who  wTere  with  him  by  turns  at 
this  early  stage,  wrote  constant  reports,  from  which  I  gather 
notices  of  the  interests  that  occupied  him  in  the  progress  of 
his  recovery  from  the  immediate  consequences  of  what  was 
called  a  slight  seizure.  Books  were,  of  course,  the  great 
resource — sermons  and  religious  books,  poetry,  and  travels  which 
carried  his  thoughts  to  remote  periods  of  the  world's  history : 
— his  approval  often  varied  by  clear  and  pungent  criticism 
of  style.  Still  jealous  of  looseness  and  vagueness,  "  he  protests 
against  the  clumsiness  of  construction  in  much  modern  poetry  : 
— '  a  way  always  to  be  found ;  there  was  a  path,  but  such 
labour  to  find  it!'  Enthusiasm  for  Gray  : — 'the  ideas  firmly 
welded  together  like  iron.'  " 

When  he  was  sufficiently  recovered  for  drives  and  walks, 
my  sister  Elizabeth  wrote  :  "  He  goes  pretty  often  by  Littlemore, 
but  it  depresses  liim.  He  admits  he  cannot  get  over  the 
gloomy  feeling  it  and  the  times  it  represents  to  him  give  him. 
He  sees  more  light-hearted  natures  find  pleasure  in  recollec- 
tions he  cannot  find.    But  there  is  clearly  something  in  the 


346 


Letters  of  the 


'rent  and  chasm'  of  that  time  that  is  dreary  to  him  still." 
In  reporting  a  visit  from  his  brother  Arthur,  which  he  enjoyed, 
she  adds,  "  It  was  only  general  talk :  James  is  of  so  reserved  a 
nature  that  only  under  the  greatest  pressure  can  he  go  beneath 
the  surface."  But  at  times,  and  as  time  went  on,  this  reserve 
gave  way,  as  the  following  touching  letter  proves  : — 

Ch.  Ch.,  February  16,  1876. 

My  dear  Church, — I  hear  rumours  of  your  coming  down. 
I  shall  be  very  glad  if  the  promise  is  fulfilled.  .  .  . 

As  for  myself,  you  may  perhaps  know  that  I  am  repaired 
externally ;  but  I  need  not  tell  you,  who  are  so  well  up  to 
physical  cases,  that  the  outward  part  of  the  case  here  is  but  a 
small  part  of  the  whole,  and  that  the  effect  on  the  brain  does 
not  wholly  cease  with  the  outward  result.  I  am  suffering 
much  from  the  effect  on  my  mind,  and  I  am  told  everywhere 
that  is  the  hardest  thing  to  remedy.  At  the  same  time,  bodily 
exercise  is  something,  and  I  am  exhorted  to  continue  it,  but 
the  exercise  cannot  continue  to  any  extent  until  the  bodily 
power  is  strengthened  and  developed.  My  best  wishes  for 
yourself  and  all  yours.  I  know  you  have  your  troubles.  May 
they  all  issue  in  the  best.  As  for  me,  pray  for  me  in  my  deep 
weakness. — Ever,  my  dear  Church,  yours  affectionately, 

J.  B.  M. 

My  love  to  your  dear  wife.  Bemember  me  with  all  the 
affection  of  the  past  to  Lord  and  Lady  Blachford. 

There  lie  before  me  confidential  reports  of  conversations, 
showing  that  he  was  able  to  speak  of  the  subjects  occupying 
his  thoughts ;  among  which  was  the  unbelief  of  the  day. 
"  There  ought  to  be  a  sermon  preached  on  the  nature  of  God." 

"  With  lowered  voice  and  look  of  horror  he  spoke  of   's 

absolute  disbelief;  of  his  assertion  that  there  was  no  God; 
of  the  sort  of  men  Mr.  C.  meets,  who  are  at  the  bottom  unbe- 
lievers ;  of  the  state  of  opinion  in  Oxford — his  mind,  no  doubt, 
dwelling  on  arguments  to  meet  this  scepticism,  and  on  the  task 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D.  347 


so  congenial  laid  on  him  by  his  office."  Again  the  heads  of 
another  conversation  are  given  : — "  The  instinctive  necessity 
in  our  nature  for  a  Cause — a  great  moral  Cause;"  "The  great 
evidence  that  this  instinct  is;"  "The  overwhelming  nature  of 
the  idea  of  God ;"  "  The  demands  for  verifying  evidence  im- 
possible to  supply;"  "The  faith  that  does  without  it  the 
essential  test  of  Christianity ;"  "  St.  Paul,  his  intellect,  and 
strong  sense."  Again,  a  few  days  later,  "  The  trial  of  illness  ;" 
"  The  sense  of  the  presence  of  God  the  great  thing  to  obtain, 
such  as  holy  men  have  felt;"  "  The  importance  of  attending  to 
the  first  stirrings  of  conscience ;"  "  Allusion  to  trials  in  early 
life ;"  "  The  attraction  of  our  Lord's  teaching — the  crowds  that 
followed  Him — the  power  and  originality  of  that  teaching." 

The  notes  go  on : — "  I  had  been  playing  hymns  to  myself, 
the  others  being  at  Cathedral.  He  wanted  me  to  go  on.  He 
spoke  of  the  Morning  Hymn,  which  had  additionally  struck 
him  as  taking  all  duties,  whether  simple  and  daily,  or  difficult 
and  critical,  as  being  only  the  obvious  duties  of  the  day."  "  I 
like,"  the  writer  adds,  "  to  remember  and  put  down  what  he 
says,  when  it  is  evidently  the  result  of  fresh  thought  and  per- 
haps fresh  circumstances.  I  went  into  his  room  just  now.  He 
was  deep  in  cogitation  about  the  state  of  belief  in  Spain, — with 
Untrodden  Spain  in  his  hand ;  and  he  entered  upon  the  subject 
for  some  time,  till  I  was  afraid  of  such  thoughts  in  a  morning, 
which  is  never  his  best  time."  Again : — "  I  have  had  a  long 
talk  with  him,  a  long  religious  talk,  partly  on  the  Psalms." 
Such  touches  of  conversation  cannot  be  pursued  into  those 
more  intimate  confidences  to  which  they  sometimes  led.  Only, 
perhaps,  it  is  well  some  indication  should  be  given  that  his 
mind  was  still  engaged  upon  those  great  subjects  which  had  so 
long  occupied  his  pen. 

In  January  1876,  Mr.  Wordsworth,  at  my  brother's  request, 
undertook  to  be  his  deputy  till  he  should  be  able  to  deliver 
his  own  lectures,  which  he  hoped  to  be  able  to  do — "  and  he 


348 


Letters  of  the 


had  asked  Dr.  Jackson  before  he  expressed  this  hope  " — by  the 
summer  term.  Other  thoughts  had  been  in  my  brother's  mind, 
but  having  secured  the  aid  of  a  definite  deputy,  and  one  so 
eminently  fitted  for  that  post,  his  mind  was  reconciled,  and  as 
he  gained  strength,  the  hope  of  returning  to  the  duties  of  his 
office  came  with  a  sense  of  reviving  power. 

Having  decided  to  try  change  of  air  and  scene,  he  went  early 
in  March  to  St.  Leonard's,  where  he  remained  for  some  months. 
Before  leaving  Oxford  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Pusey  taking  leave. 
Some  words  of  the  note  remained  in  my  sister's  memory : 
"  Not  knowing  in  what  condition  he  may  return,  he  asked  for 
his — Dr.  Pusey's — prayers,  sending  his  love  to  '  Liddon,  Bright, 
and  King.'  '  Under  a  deep  sense  of  unworthiness  I  feel  that 
none  can  suffer  without  benefit  under  the  Divine  rod.' "  To 
this  note  he  received  the  following  reply : — 

Dr.  Pusey  to  J.  B.  M. 

Ch.  Ch. 

My  deajr  Mozley, — I  have  not  called  at  your  lodgings, 
knowing  that  you  have  to  keep  quiet.  I  pray  God  that  we  may 
have  you  back  again  in  tolerable  health.  But  it  must  be  so 
difficult  for  your  very  active  brain  to  be  still ;  and  your  work 
is  so  unlike  mine,  of  which  so  much  is  quiet  reading,  whereas 
yours  is  all  thinking,  I  suppose. 

I  often  think  of  those  young  days  of  yours,  when  you  were  in 
this  house,  and  your  brain  seemed  to  me  the  most  active  1  had 
ever  seen. 

It  must  be  a  great  self-denial  to  keep  it  still.  Yet,  as  you 
feel,  it  is  something  to  have  to  give  up  to  our  Father's  will,  to 
use  or  not  use  it,  as  He  will. 

We  miss  its  use  much  in  the  battle  with  unbelief;  but  the 
quiet  yielding  of  your  strong  brain  to  be  kept  inactive,  so  long 
as  it  shall  seem  good  to  Him,  may  impress  those  whom  you 
wisli  to  impress  more  than  its  active  use. 

I  will  not  fail  to  remember  you,  as  you,  1  hope,  will  me. 

I  will  give  your  message  to  Liddon,  Bright,  and  King. 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


349 


May  God  preserve  your  going  out  and  coming  in,  until  the 
coming  in  where  there  is  no  going  out,  in  life  everlasting. — 
Yours  affectionately,  E.  B.  Pusey. 

Ash-Wednesday,  March  1,  1876. 

As  has  been  said,  my  brother  had  delayed  publishing  his 
sermons  in  spite  of  considerable  pressure ;  but  it  must  be 
granted  that  the  time  he  at  length  chose  was  happy  for  him- 
self. While  he  could  produce  such  good  work,  his  office  was 
well  represented  ;  and  the  interest  of  carrying  his  two  volumes 
— the  University  Sermons  and  the  Old  Testament  Lectures — 
through  the  press  was  an  incalculable  alleviation,  and  benefit 
to  his  spirits  during  the  period  of  suspended  labour.  There 
was  always  the  work  and  bustle  of  proofs  going  on.  Each 
morning  the  post  brought  business  for  the  day — constant 
employment  for  judgment  and  memory.  He  might  feel  him- 
self never  less  laid  aside.  Everything  was  done  under  his  eye 
and  direction.  Books  of  reference  were  hunted  through,  to 
verify  some  statement  or  quotation,  by  able  though  unaccus- 
tomed heads  and  hands,  whose  pleasure  it  was  to  work  under 
his  indispensable  orders.  His  study  was  a  busy  scene.  And 
when  the  time  came  for  the  first  of  these  volumes  to  see  the 
light,  the  unanimous  voice  of  interest  and  approval,  the 
homage  to  his  powers,  might  have  upset  a  less  resolute  humility. 
What  his  sister  Elizabeth  on  one  occasion  wrote  of  him  was 
true  throughout:  "James  certainly  succeeds  in  keeping  hold 
of  his  humility  in  spite  of  the  ovations  he  receives;  and  in 
speculating  on  the  capacity  for  praise  that  some  have,  he 
really  seems  to  remove  it  from  himself  and  withdraw  from  all 
personal  relations  to  it." 

I  was  with  him  at  St.  Leonard's  when  the  sermons  came  out, 
and  well  recall  going  into  his  room  with  a  letter  Mrs.  Johnson 
had  received  from  Lord  Blachford,  written  on  the  first  warmth 
of  a  rapid  perusal.    My  brother  was  sitting  alone  and  unoc- 


35o 


Letters  of  the 


cupied ;  except  by  his  own  thoughts,  which  must  often  have 
been  sad  ones,  however  resigned  he  was  to  the  dispensation 
under  which  he  was  suffering.  His  first  words,  in  being  told 
the  subject  of  the  letter,  were  to  the  effect  that  "  he  would  say 
they  reminded  him  of  Newman ; "  and  so  it  proved,  for  the 
letter  has  this  sentence :  "  It  is  no  bad  compliment  to  say  that 
I  feel  Bishop  Butler  and  Newman  in  them.  The  dry  wit  of 
Butler,  the  rich  expansion  of  Newman,  and  the  searching 
judgment  of  both :"  the  letter  going  to  that  discrimination  and 
selection  so  interesting  to  an  author.  "  I  think  the  four  that 
took  hold  of  me  were,  'The  Pharisees,'  'The  Beversal  of 
Human  Judgment,' '  Duty  to  Equals,'  and  '  Strength  of  Wishes,' 
though  a  second  reading  might  change  this  order."  It  was 
the  greater  pleasure,  to  those  near  my  brother,  to  report 
the  general  consent  of  warm  approval,  whether  from  private 
letters  or  the  press,  from  the  impossibility,  as  there  seemed,  of 
awaking  in  him  any  vanity  of  authorship.  He  was  always 
critical  of  his  own  work  as  though  he  had  an  ideal  he  had 
never  reached.  He  had  to  be  persuaded  into  the  due  amount 
of  satisfaction.  His  real  lasting  pleasure  in  his  friends'  praise 
was  because  it  came  from  them. 

On  returning  to  my  own  home,  soon  after  the  publication  of 
the  sermons,  he  wrote  to  me  of  a  letter  he  had  received  from 
Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  warmth  of  praise  had  reached  him  earlier 
through  friends. 

To  his  Sister. 

May,  1876. 

Gladstone's  letter  is  pleasant ;  in  his  usual  style.  He  keeps 
it  up  with  epistolary  naturalness.  Considering  he  knows  so 
well  that  everybody  places  such  a  value  on  his  letters,  his 
humility  is  a  real  merit,  and  deserves  a  reward,  which  it  does 
not  always  do. 

The  reception  of  his  sermons  by  the  press  was  another 
enlivening  feature  of  the  time.    He  writes  to  a  sister : — 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozlcy,  D.D. 


351 


To  F.  M. 

Shoreham,  July  28,  1876. 
I  have  to  thank  my  reviewers  not  only  for  their  compli- 
mentary papers,  but  for  the  solidity  of  them.  This  one  [from 
the  John  Bull]  is  well  worked  up  upon  a  solid  bottom.  It  has 
done  justice  to  the  pains  taken  with  the  argument.  I  am  glad 
to  see  a  theological  sermon,  more  especially,  well  and  accurately 
treated,  and  attention  called  to  the  argumentative  points. 

Nor  was  the  interest  of  bringing  out  his  volume  confined  to 
its  first  reception.  My  brother  was  not  unfamiliar  with  warm 
praise  from  a  select  circle  of  readers,  but  he  had  not  been  led 
by  the  wide  experience  of  those  best  informed  to  expect  a  large 
demand  for  a  book  of  sermons.  It  would  perhaps  seem  to  him 
more  to  be  expected  that  a  few  should  appreciate  warmly 
than  that  his  work  should  gain  general  acceptance ;  so  that 
there  was  a  pleasant  surprise  at  the  early  call  for  a  second 
edition.  The  book  had  been  published  in  May,  and  on  July  27  he 
writes  to  me  "  amused  "  by  Messrs.  Pdvington's  regret  that  they 
cannot  send  a  copy  of  the  first  edition  ("  not  a  single  copy  of  the 
first  edition  of  your  University  Sermons  remaining  ")  which  he 
had  written  for ;  having  a  strong  preference  for  octavo  over  the 
modern  crown  octavo  form. 

The  following  letter  from  Dr.  Liddon,  gratifying  from  its 
tone  of  warm  appreciation,  would  also  be  valued  for  its  testi- 
mony to  the  good  work  emanating  from  the  Divinity  Chair 
which  he  filled  : — 

Dr.  Liddon's  Letter. 

May  12,  1876. 

My  dear  Mozley, — I  have  been  reading  your  recently 
published  volume  of  sermons,  and  cannot  help  writing  to  say 
how  grateful  I  am  to  you  for  publishing  them,  and  how  sure  I 
am  that  this  will  be  a  very  general  feeling  in  Oxford.  If  it 
were  not  unfeeling  to  do  so,  I  should  also  like  to  say  that  I  can 
hardly  regret  the  circumstances  which  have  resulted  in  their 


352 


Letters  of  the 


publication,  so  very  sure  am  I  that  they  will  do  a  great  deal  of 
good,  and  will  show  that  our  leading  Chair  of  Divinity  is  better 
filled  than  has  been  the  case  at  any  time  since  the  death  of 
Bishop  Lloyd.  I  should  not  venture  to  say  so  much  to  you, 
but  in  illness,  as  I  know  from  experience,  such  assurances  may 
be  of  use  in  a  way  which  would  not  be  at  all  possible  in  days 
of  health  and  strength. 

It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  get  a  fairly  good  account  of 
you  from  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  a  few  days  ago,  and  a  very 
improved  one  from  the  Miss  Johnsons  to-day.  It  is  delightful 
to  be  able  to  hope  that  you  will  again  be  among  us  in  October. 
Meanwhile,  if  I  might  do  so,  I  would  beg  you  not  to  be 
tempted  into  any  sort  of  premature  exertion.  As  regards  the 
University,  the  publication  of  this  volume  will,  of  itself,  make 
anything  of  the  sort  unnecessary  for  a  long  time  to  come.  .  .  . 
— Ever  very  truly  yours,  H.  P.  Liddon. 

Another  alleviation  of  a  protracted  period  of  inactivity, — of 
the  trial  to  a  mind  ever  engaged  in  thought  at  being  cut 
off  from  the  congenial  work  of  expression,  and  compelled  to 
dependence  on  others  for  carrying  out  inquiries  once  his  own 
familiar  occupation, — was  in  the  invaluable  help  and  services 
of  Mr.  (now  Canon)  Wordsworth,  not  only  in  his  office  of 
deputy  but  in  his  essential  supervision  during  the  bringing  out 
of  the  volume  of  Old  Testament  Lectures ;  and,  more  than  all, 
in  the  affectionate  warmth  of  regard  with  which  these  services 
were  rendered.  In  the  letters  before  me  his  name  constantly 
occurs,  and  always  as  inspiring  confidence  that  all  would  go 
well  where  his  help  might  be  relied  on.1 

1  At  the  close  of  1876  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Wordsworth  visited  Dr.Mozley  at 
Old  Shoreham.  In  writing  to  me  my  brother  speaks  of  Mrs.  Wordsworth's 
music.  "  Her  Beethoven  every  night  was  a  great  treat."  Throughout  his 
life  he  had  been  very  earnest  in  his  love  of  music,  and  it  was  a  lasting 
pleasure  to  him.  It  was  indeed  so  distinct  a  feature  that  some  mention 
ought  to  be  made  of  it.  He  was  an  intellectual  listener.  His  mind  never 
lost  itself  in  vague  dreams,  but  was  consciously  at  work  upon  what  he  was 
hearing,  and,  as  in  talk,  he  was  content  to  be  a  hearer  without  taking  an 
active  part.  It  was  a  thoughtful  process.  His  tastes  had  to  be  reasoned 
out  to  himself — why  he  liked,  why  he  was  indifferent,  or  suffered  positive 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


353 


With  the  new  year  1877  came  out  the  Old  Testament 
lectures,  under  the  title,  Ruling  Ideas  in  Early  Ages.  The 
preparing  it  for  the  press  had  occupied  some  months,  and, 
as  being  my  brother's  most  recent  work,  had  a  peculiar 
interest  to  him.  In  fact,  he  had  had  the  lectures  in  hand 
for  publication  before  his  illness.  On  February  16th  he 
writes  to  his  sister  of  criticisms  on  the  new  volume : — 

"  The  Spectator  had  an  article  a  fortnight  ago,  which  took  an 
interest  in  the  argument  of  the  book,  though  the  writer  did  not 
see  things  as  we  wanted  him  to  see  them.  As  you  do  not 
mention  the  article,  I  send  it  you.  You  call  my  books  tough 
morsels.  You  know  1  labour  under  a  fate  to  take  to  tough 
books.    I  have  extracted  my  share  of  interest  out  of  them." 

On  November  22,  1877,  I  received  his  last  letter,  which 
begins,  "  I  beg  to  congratulate  you  on  a  new  edition  of  Ruling 
Ideas."  But  the  hand  that  held  the  pen  had  lost  its  cunning. 
It  is  something  that  its  labours  during  a  lifetime  brought 
him  this  touch  of  pleasure  at  the  last ; — that  he  might  know 
that  his  good  work  would  survive  him.  At  the  latter  end 
of  December  came  a  final  seizure,  from  which  he  did  not 
recover  apparent  consciousness,  but  lay  in  monumental  calm 
till  he  passed  away  amid  prayers  and  tears  on  the  evening  of 
January  the  4th,  1878. 

A  College  friend,  on  occasion  of  the  publication  of  James 
Mozley's  Essays  in  1878,  wrote  an  article1  on  them,  which  not 

annoyance.  He  had  moral  repugnances,  as  for  instance  Chopin,  whom  lie 
always  suspected.  Of  one  of  his  compositions  he  spoke  during  his  illness 
with  strong  repugnance.  "  He  [Chopin]  was  a  Manichean — certainly  a  Maui- 
chean  :  he  did  not  believe  in  God  ;  he  believed  in  some  spirit,  not  in  God." 
The  trite,  tuneless,  often  vulgar,  modern  ballad  was  one  of  his  antipathies 
of  a  less  grave  type.  He  never  learnt  the  art  of  not  listening ;  his  atten- 
tion could  not  but  be  kept  on  the  stretch — the  music  speculated  on. 
This  habit  gave  seriousness  to  his  appreciation.  The  moral  grandeur  of 
Beethoven's  genius  was  always  present  to  him,  as,  with  less  force,  was  also 
.Mendelssohn's  ;  "They  believed  in  God — their  music  showed  it." 

1  Mozley's  Essays.  By  the  Bight  Hon.  Lord  Blachford.  Nineteenth 
Century,  June  18,  1879. 

Z 


354 


Letters  of  the 


only  entered  into  the  merits  and  characteristic  qualities  of  the 
essays,  but  gave  a  sketch  of  the  author  as  he  had  known  him 
in  under-graduate  and  subsequent  days.  The  character  he  drew 
illustrates  and  bears  out  the  letters  here  laid  before  the  reader 
in  so  remarkable  a  manner,  that  I  have  asked  to  be  allowed 
to  close  my  task  by  inserting  those  passages  that  relate  to  my 
brother's  personal  character  apart  from  his  works  : — 

"Among  Dr.  Mozley's  youthful  characteristics  were  simplicity 
of  habits,  warm  but  undemonstrative  affections,  sincerity  of 
thought,  an  almost  stern  purity  of  mind,  carelessness  of  worldly 
advancement  or  distinction,  and  a  deliberate  desire  to  attach 
himself  to  a  worthy  object  of  life.  He  soon  felt  that  thinking 
and  writing  were  his  vocation ;  and  he  found  a  career  in  the 
service  of  the  Anglican  Church,  and  guides  in  the  leaders  of 
what  was  called  the  Oxford  Movement,  with  whom  circum- 
stances at  once  made  him  intimate.  To  an  unmistakable 
independence  of  thought  he  joined  a  cordial  and  natural 
recognition  of  all  those  claims  for  respect,  or  even  provisional 
submission  of  belief,  which  arise  from  intellect,  age,  moral 
character,  or  social  relation.  And  so  under  these  leaders  he 
fairly  enrolled  himself  as  pupil  and  soldier.  He  was  fond  of 
his  friends  and  of  society,  conscious  of  his  own  powers,  without 
valuing  himself  on  them,  and  ready  and  liberal  in  his  appre- 
ciation of  others.  But  partly  from  the  modesty  of  a  man  who 
had  before  him  a  high  standard  of  excellence,  partly  because 
he  could  not  easily  do  himself  justice  in  spoken  words,  partly 
because  it  was  a  kind  of  serious  amusement  to  him  to  observe 
and  ponder,  he  did  not  talk  much  in  company.  If  he  spoke 
he  seemed  to  speak  because  there  was  something  which  ought 
to  be  said  and  nobody  else  to  say  it ;  expressing  himself  in 
short  or  even  abrupt  sentences  and  well-chosen  words,  which 
showed  even  a  critical  or  eager  interest  in  what  was  going  on  ; 
but,  when  this  was  done,  falling  back  into  his  normal  state  of 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mozlcy,  D.D. 


355 


amused  or  inquiring  attention,  like  a  man  who  lias  discharged 
a  duty  and  is  glad  to  have  done  with  it.  He  was  not  an 
artist  or  a  writer  of  poems,  but  he  had  a  keen  and  somewhat 
analytical  appreciation  of  what  was  beautiful  to  the  eye  or  ear, 
whether  severe  or  florid,  and  his  writings  show  that  his  sense 
of  things  was  as  vigorous  in  point  of  humour  and  poetry  as  in 
point  of  philosophy.  .  .  . 

"  He  had  not  the  special  excellencies  or  the  defects  of  a  great 
preacher,  and,  with  all  his  power  of  thought  and  imagery,  could 
scarcely,  I  think,  have  become  one,  even  had  his  delivery  been 
better  than  it  was.  He  was  wholly  genuine — in  his  friendships, 
his  arguments,  his  measurement  of  things,  and  in  his  devotion 
to  the  Church  of  England — not  an  imagination  of  his  own  mind, 
nor  exactly  the  Church  as  it  is,  but  a  distinct  historical  com- 
munity, having,  like  his  country,  its  defects  and  its  merits  ;  and, 
in  spite  of  those  defects,  capable  of  greatness  and  goodness  on 
the  basis  supplied  by  its  formularies  and  great  divines. 

"  With  a  lively  discrimination  of  characters  and  situations  he 
had  not  the  flexibility  of  address,  the  resource,  the  practical 
energy,  or  the  taste  for  active  movement  which  are  required  for 
a  leader.  His  line  was  thought ;  and,  in  choosing  theology  as 
the  object  of  that  thought,  he  approached  it  on  its  philosophical 
side.  The  details  of  doctrine,  the  scholarship,  the  arclneology, 
or  the  textual  interpretation  of  Scripture  might  interest  but 
did  not  detain  him.  Appreciating  the  value  of  minutiae,  he  had 
no  taste  for  them.  He  was  always  ambitious  of  '  a  view,'  as 
it  was  called — an  available  principle  under  the  light  of  which 
minuticc  fell  into  their  places  as  of  course, — and  spared  no 
thought  or  reading  in  attaining  it.  Thus  he  found  himself 
particularly  at  home  in  tracing  the  bearing  of  scriptural  teach- 
ing on  the  laws  of  human  nature,  or  the  constitution  of  the 
world,  or  in  determining  the  connection  between  a  particular 
doctrine  and  the  moral  temperament  or  necessity  to  which  it 
appealed,  or  out  of  which  it  sprang.    It  was  a  pleasure  to  him 


356 


Letters  of  the 


to  penetrate,  whether  states  of  things,  states  of  mind,  forms  of 
character,  or  courses  of  argument ;  and  in  this  he  was  patient 
of  labour  and  suspense.  But  once  satisfied,  he  was  ready,  as 
the  phrase  is,  to  go  off  at  score.  No  one  liked  better  to  give 
his  pen  a  gallop.  No  one  had  greater  power  of  bringing  home 
to  a  reader  that  what  is  obvious  is  obvious — a  matter  not 
always  so  easy  as  it  may  be  thought — no  one  had  greater 
richness  of  development  and  illustration.  He  agreed  apparently 
with  Lord  Bacon,  that  a  broad  and  true  view  should  bear  down 
objections  by  its  mere  completeness  and  momentum.  .  .  . 

"  In  this  respect  his  mind  was  remarkably  constituted.  To 
an  idea  of  limited  extent — a  platitude  if  you  like — or  a  just 
and  appropriate  observation  which  he  fathomed  at  a  glance,  he 
could  at  once  give  a  profuse  and  vigorous  expression,  could 
develop,  illustrate,  and  enforce  it  with  the  utmost  force  and 
vivacity,  almost  off-hand.  But  if  he  was  called  upon  to  search 
out  what  was  subtle,  doubtful,  or  involved,  or  what,  clear  in 
itself,  had  been  obscured  by  the  hardy  credulity  of  doubt,  and 
therefore  had  to  be  hunted  back  into  what  was  clearer  than 
clear,  he  was  embarrassed  by  his  fastidious  desire  to  touch  the 
true  bottom,  and  when  there  to  grasp  firmly  the  cardinal  truth 
with  a  full  apprehension  of  its  surroundings.  The  sense  of 
half  knowledge  only  paralysed  him.  He  had  no  tincture  of 
that  aimablc  leg&rcte  qui  fait  prononccr  sur  ce  qu'on  ignore.  If 
he  understood  a  matter  wholly  or  in  part,  he  could  write  on 
that  whole  or  part  with  force  and  richness.  But  if  he  had  only 
a  confused  and  inchoate  understanding  of  it  he  could  not  write 
at  all.  A  proud  disgust  at  "  cram  "  or  make-believe  made  him 
incapable  of  that  adroit  use  of  smattering  which  plays  so  much 
part  in  the  examinations  of  second-rate  men." 

In  its  notice  of  the  four  biographies,  Strafford,  Laud,  Crom- 
well, and  Luther,  which  compose  the  first  volume  of  the  essays, 
and  are  earliest  in  date,  the  article  dwells  on  James  Mozley 


Rev.  J.  B.  Mosley,  D.D. 


357 


as  a  "  portrait  painter,"  showing  how  congenial  the  work  of 
character-drawing  was  to  him,  as  is  shown  in  the  letters : — 

"  His  turn,  indeed,  for  analysis  of  character,  pursues  him 
everywhere,  and  the  theological  part  of  the  essay  on  Luther 
derives  its  interest,  not  from  any  scriptural  or  logical  argu- 
ment, but  its  searching  exhibition  of  the  connection  between 
the  great  Lutheran  doctrine  and  the  personal  character  of  its 
inventor. 

"  A  word  in  conclusion  on  one  aspect  of  his  works.  .  .  I  wish 
to  notice  one  pervading  strain  of  thought,  which,  as  it  appears 
in  his  first  works,  serves  to  give  depth  and  force,  and  life  and 
richness  and  purpose  to  his  latest.  He  touches  a  great  variety 
of  subjects,  but  that  which  is  constantly  colouring  his  narratives, 
directing  his  philosophy,  and  bursting  out  in  a  kind  of  stern 
poetry,  is  the  position  of  moral  goodness  in  the  world.  He 
inherited  this  from  his  teachers.  In  the  earlier  part  of  this 
century  the  Calvinistic  theology  was  one  of  feeling  and  dogma, 
almost  suspicious  of  the  sounds  of  duty  and  desert;  the 
High  Churchman  was  careful  about  duties,  but  jealous  of 
enthusiasm ;  while  a  literary  world  and  the  clergy  who 
belonged  to  it,  maintaining  in  a  tone  of  apology  the  com- 
patibility of  reason  and  religion,  were  apt  to  enlarge  on  the 
supreme  authority  and  dignity  of  the  intellect.  The  school  of 
which  Newman,  Pusey,  and  Keble  were  the  acknowledged 
heads,  if  it  did  nothing  else,  taught  unflinchingly  and  continu- 
ally, a  religion  of  the  heart  and  will,  of  the  thoughts  and 
emotions,  of  the  passions  and  conduct  to  which  everything  else 
was  accessory  or  subordinate.  None  could  accuse  them  of  being 
blind  to  the  beauty  of  poetry,  the  cogency  of  reason,  the  value 
of  divine  truth,  the  majesty  of  the  divine  dispensations ;  but 
one  of  their  peculiarities  was,  that  before  beauty,  before  know- 
ledge, before  power,  before  self-satisfaction,  they  placed  the 
simple-hearted  and  determined  purification  of  the  will  and 


358      Letters  of  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Mozley,  D.D. 


affections.  This  unflinching  reference  to  true-heartedness  as 
an  avenue  to  all  that  Christians  hope  for,  is  constantly  break- 
ing forth  in  these  earlier  works  of  Dr.  Mozley ;  but  it  is  in 
some  of  his  later  works  that  his  fervent  sense  of  this  supremacy 
is  most  adequately  expressed.  In  force  of  language,  fertility 
of  illustration,  and  vividness  of  conception,  they  are  scarcely 
superior  to  what  is  now  published.  In  maturity  of  style  and 
balance  of  thought  they  are.  And  in  this  they  are  remarkable, 
that  while  the  author  does  not  shrink  from  employing  the  full 
force  of  his  intellect  on  the  various  great  questions  which  our 
days  have  brought  forth,  he  most  rises  above  himself  when 
he  most  directly  asserts  the  inherent  and  illimitable  authority 
of  the  central  truth  of  morality,  tears  all  disguise  from  its 
counterfeits,  and  casts  the  human  heart  naked  at  the  feet  of 
its  Judge." 


INDEX. 


A. 

Aberdeen,  Lord,  208,  216,  244. 

Aclaiid,  Dr.,  88,  177,  225. 

Acland,  A.  H.  D.,  343. 

Albert,  Prince,  110. 

Alexander,  Bishop,  111. 

Alford,  Dean,  266. 

Alison,  Sir  A.,  232. 

Allies,  Rev.  Mr.,  202. 

Anderson,  Sir  Charles,  81. 

Andrea,  Cardinal,  277. 

Andrews,  Mr.,  4,  5,  7,  8,  14,  16,  17, 

18,  19. 
Antonelli,  Cardinal,  290. 
Arnold,  Dr.,  19,  20,  30,  45,  53,  92, 

155. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  248. 
Ashwell,  Canon,  153. 
Ashley,  Lord,  127,  163. 
Atkinson,  Mr.,  66. 

B. 

Badeley,  Edward,  123, 138,  139,  143, 

145,  152,  157,  163,  246. 
Bagot,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  116,  126, 

130. 

Balfour,  Dr.,  258. 

Barker,  T.  ¥.,  94. 

Baynes,  Mrs.,  264. 

Beaufort,  Captain,  92. 

Bellasis,  Edward,  96,  130. 

Bennett,  Rev.  W.  J.  E.,  202. 

Bentinck,  Lord  G.,  194. 

Bernard,  Montague,  184. 

Bethell  (Lord  Westbury),  159,  237. 

Bieni,  88. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  314. 
Blackwood,  John,  311. 
Blagrave,  Colonel,  199. 
Blandy,  Rev.  F.,  164. 
Blencowe,  T.,  34,  35. 
Bliss,  Dr.,  38,  48,  51,  128. 
Blomfield,  Bishop  of  London,  62. 


Bloxam,  Dr.,  94,  101,  108,  117,  122, 

136,  149. 
Bowden,  Captain,  146. 
Bowden,  John,  47. 
Bowyer,  Sir  George,  92,  281. 
Bridges,  Rev.  B.  E.,  48,  49,  78,  152, 

304. 

Bright,  Canon,  348. 
Brougham,  Lord,  25,  30,  283. 
Bulteel,  Mr.,  25,  27. 
Bulwer,  Lytton,  330. 
i  Bunsen,  Chevalier,  87,  88,  92. 
Burgon,  Dean,  193. 
Burton,  Dr.,  45,  50. 
Butler,  Bishop,  223. 

C. 

|  Cardigan,  Lord,  252. 

|  Cardwell,  Dr.,  52,  183,  184. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  101. 

Cart wright,  W.  R.,  M.P.,  90. 

Caswell,  Rev.  Henry,  135. 

Chalmers,  Dr.,  85. 

Chandler,  Rev.  D.,  165. 
j  Cholmeley,  Rev.  R.,  D.D.,  108,  225, 
233. 

Christie,  Rev.  John,  23,  28,  40,  44, 

45,  60,  106. 
Church,  Dean,  145;  150,  161,  203, 

220,  226,  243,  284. 
Churton,  Rev.  B.  W.,  116. 
I  Clarke,  Miss,  47. 
Clarke,  Dr.,  267. 

Claughton,  T.  L.  (Bishop),  119,  149. 
Clyde,  Lord,  252. 
Cobden,  Kichard,  244. 
Colenso,  Bishop,  253. 
Coleridge,  Rev.  Edward,  123,  156. 
Coleridge,  H.,  185. 
Coleridge,  Hartley,  62. 
Coleridge,  Lord,  165,  184. 
Coleridge,  Sir  John  (Judge),  47,  145, 
163,  301. 


360 


Index. 


Coleridge,  S.  T.,  46,  204,  23S. 
Collinson,  Eev.  Mr.,  129. 
Colquhoun,  Mr.,  65. 
Congreve,  Mr.,  103. 
Co]ileston,  R.  S.  (Bishop),  343. 
Copleston,  E.,  Bishop  of  Landaff,  19, 
21,  53. 

Copeland,  Rev.  W.  J.,  58,  63,  101, 

103,  122,  303,  305. 
Cornisli,  Rev.  C.  L.,  60,  190. 
Coutts,  Mrs.,  194. 
Cowley,  199. 
Coxe,  Mr..  44. 
Coxwell,  Miss,  77. 
Craufurd,  Captain,  230. 
Creighton,  Rev.  M.,  343. 
Cumberland,  Duke  of,  38,  41,  42. 

D. 

Daubexy,  Dr.,  122,  156. 
Davenport,  Mr.,  72. 
Davison,  Rev.  John,  33,  265,  301. 
Dean,  Rev.  James,  20,  34,  35  n. 
Denison,  Rev.  G.  A.,  27,  37,  216, 
219. 

Derby,  Lord,  215,  219,  221  n. 

Devon,  Lord,  128. 

Dickens,  Charles,  198. 

Digby,  Kenelm,  300. 

Disraeli,  Rt.  Hon.  B.,  221,  333,  292. 

Dodson,  Mr.,  159. 

Donkin,  Professor,  95,  153,  196,  307. 
Donkin,  Miss,  199. 
Dornford,  Rev.  Joseph,  26. 
Dupanloup,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  280. 
Dyson,  Rev.  Charles,  232. 
Dyson,  Rev.  F.,  164,  233. 

E. 

Eden,  Rev.  C,  110,  158. 
Eldon,  Lord,  39,  42. 
Elwyn,  Mr.,  234. 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  269  ». 
Espin,  Chancellor,  341. 
Estcourt,  Sotheron,  90,  183. 

F. 

Faber,  Rev.  Francis,  92,  108,  148, 

209,  247,  292,  338. 
Faber,  Frederick,  209,  261. 
Faber,  Canon,  124,  125. 
Faussett,  Dr.,  120,  122,  142. 
Fitzgerald,  Rev.  Mr.,  299. 
Forbes,  Lord,  194. 


,  Fowle,  Rev.  Fuller,  106,  107. 

Foy,  Rev.  Martin  Wilson,  129. 

Freeman,  Miss,  259. 

Fronde,  Anthony,  239. 
'  Froude,  Rev.  R.  Hurrell,  28  n,  32, 
34,  45,  61,  G7,  70,  75,  102. 

Froude,  William,  69,  308. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  269  n. 

G. 

Garbett,  Mr.,  123,  126. 
]  Gauntlett,  Dr.,  192. 
!  Gibbins,  Mr.,  74. 

Gilbert,  Bishop,  51,  127. 

Gladstone,  Right  Hon.  W.  E.,  87.  SS, 
145,  158,  160,  162,  163,  165,  ISO, 
182,  183,  184,  185,  198,  205,  207, 
208,  216,  218,  220,  223,  230,  232, 
255,  259,  266,  292,  300,  338,  340, 
350. 

j  Gleig,  Rev.  Mr.,  88. 

'  Golightly,  Rev.  C.  P.,  34,  61,  62, 

I     112,  124,  125,  161,  188. 

Gorbam,  Rev.  Mr.,  201. 

Goulburn,  Dean,  333. 

Graham,  Sir  James,  208. 

Gresley,  Rev.  W.,  74,  85. 

Greswell  (Corpus),  Rev.  E.,  51,  185, 
187. 

Grey,  Rev.  W.,  16  n. 
Grey,  Lord,  41. 
Grey,  Sir  George,  65,  202. 
Guillemarde,  Rev.  Mr.,  165. 
Gurney,  Judge,  101. 

H. 

Haddan,  A.,  185. 

Haddan,  H.,  127,  185. 

Halford,  Sir  H.,  128. 

Hall,  Archdeacon,  183. 

Hallam,  Henry,  182. 

Hamilton,  Dr.  W.  K.,  46,  250. 

Ham] .den,  Bishop,  39,  50,  51,  52,  53, 

54,  55,  60,  131,  132,  134,  151, 

164,  187,  188,  248. 
Hare,  Rev.  Aug.,  329. 
Hare,  Rev.  Julius,  329. 
Harris,  H.,  185. 
Harrison,  Rev.  B.,  40. 
Hawkins,  Dr.,  Provost  of  Oriel,  21, 

54,  61,  S2,  134.  135,  142,  157,  184. 
Hayes,  Mr.,  181. 
Heathcote,  G.  W.,  95. 
Heathcote,  Sir  W.,61,  165,  184,  223. 


Index. 


361 


Herbert,  Sidney,  208,  244,  251. 

Hervey,  Lord  Arthur,  268. 

Heurtley,  Canon,  335. 

Hill,  Rev.  Mr.,  74. 

Hircher,  Dr.,  253. 

Holland,  Rev.  H.  S.,  343. 

Hook,  Dean,  37,50,  111,  114,  145, 

152,  165,  172. 
Hooker,  Richard,  204. 
Hope,  James  Robert,  87,  104,  111, 

122,  123,  165,  209. 

Hopkins,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Vermont,  89. 

Horne,  Bishop,  101  n. 

Howley,  Archbishop,  33,  61,  153. 

Hume,  David,  201  n,  211. 

Hurd,  Bishop,  201  n. 

Hussey,  Rev.  Mr.,  158. 

Hutton,  Rev.  Mr.,  162. 

T. 

Illingworth,  J.  R.,  343. 
Inglis,  Sir  R.,  180,  182. 
Irons,  Rev.  Dr.,  268. 

J. 

Jackson,  Dr.,  225. 

James,  G.  P.  R.,  146. 

Jayne,  F.  J.,  343. 

Jelf,  Dr.  R.  W.,  6  n,  142  n,  251. 

Jenner,  Sir  Herbert,  188. 

Jenkyns,  Dr.,  142  n. 

Jersey,  Lady,  291. 

Jeune,  Bishop,  206. 

Jewell,  Bishop,  132. 

Johnson,  Manuel,  (Observer,)  69,  76, 

90,  91,  94,  184,  235,  239,  241. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  201  n. 
Jowett,  Rev.  B.,  223,  238,  245,  246, 

248. 

Joyce,  Rev.  J.,  19. 

K. 

Kaye,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  39. 

Keble,  Rev.  John,  27,  31,  33,  34,  35  11, 
36,  37,  47,  49,  53,  55,  63,  72,  77, 
78,  85,  92,  93,  97,  1 14, 119,  120  n, 

123,  125,  154,  155,  156,  161,  170  ; 
191,  195,  201,  202,  216,  223,  239, 
251,  265,  301. 

Keble,  Mrs.,  77,  92. 
Keen,  Miss,  68,  70. 
Kelly,  Sir  Fitzroy,  190. 
Kempe,  Rev.  J.  E.,  262. 
Kettle,  J.  R.  L.,  66. 


Kidd,  Dr.,  39. 

King,  Rev.  Canon,  348. 

Kingsley,  Rev.  Charles,  239,  251,  260. 

Kynaston,  Rev.  Dr.,  119. 

L. 

Lake,  Dean,  223. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  132,  147,  159. 

Le  Bas,  104. 

Lee,  Archdeacon,  299. 

Lee,  Prince  (Bishop),  130. 

Liddon,  Dr.,  331. 

Lind,  Jenny,  195,  196,  197. 

Lock,  W.,  343. 

Locke,  223. 

Lockhart,  John,  64,  218. 

M. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  30,  101,  234. 
M'Ghee,  Rev.  Mr.,  130. 
Macmullen,  Rev.  Mr.,  134,  142,  151, 

314. 
Magee,  Mr.,  36. 
Madan,  A.  C,  343. 
Maitland,  Mr.  71. 

Manning,    Cardinal,  71,    110,  116, 

148,  149,  165,  209,  335. 
Mansel,  Dean,  240. 
Marriott,  Rev.  Charles,  34,  90,  122, 

154,  189,  202,  229. 
Marshall,  Mr.,  118. 
Matheson,  Mr.,  64,  65. 
Mathison,  Mr.,  177. 
Maurice,  J.  F.  D.,  63. 
Maurice,  Rev.  F,  111,  222,  238. 
Maynard,  M.,  212. 
Melbourne,  Lord,  53. 
Merivale,  H.,  63,  71. 
Mill,  Dr.,  27,  177. 
Mill,  Stuart,  211. 
Mitchell,  Dr.,  42,  66,  183. 
Moberly,  Bishop,  161,  216,  307. 
Moberly,  R.  C,  343. 
Morris,  Rev.  Mr.,  113. 
Mozley,  Mr.,  2,  14,  19,  44. 
Mozley,  Mrs.,  4,  6,  16,  17,  18,  44. 

49,  69,  287,  289. 
Mozley,  Jane,  3,  17,  18,  20  n,  23,  24, 

28,  31  n. 

Mozley,  John,  40,  59,  70,  87,  93,  101. 
253. 

Mozley,  the  Rev.  Thomas,  6,  19,  20, 
21,  22,  23,  24,  28,  29,  31,  34,  37, 
40,  42,  54,  58,  60,  85,  90,  97,  106. 
108,  138,  143.  205,  230  n,  251. 

A 


362 


Index. 


Mozley,  Charles,  4,  40,  101,  257. 
Mozley,  Rev.  Arthur,  5,  79,  83,  129, 

134,  135,  143,  161,  215,  216,  220, 

238,  260,  262  n,  268. 
Mozley,  Mrs.  Thomas,  76,  91,  102, 

105,  120  n,  142,  174,  214. 
Mozley,  Herbert  Newman,  209. 
Mozley,  Mrs.  John,  102,  104,  163, 

173. 

Mozlev,  J.  R.,  294. 
Mozley,  H.  W.,  335. 
Midler,  Max,  235. 
Murray,  Dr.,  122,  206. 
Murray,  John,  229. 
Mylne.  Bishop,  343. 

N. 

Nardi,  Monsignor,  291. 

Neate,  Charles,  232. 

Newman,  J.  H., Cardinal,  6,  19,  21,24, 
27,  28,  31.  32,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37, 
38,  39,  40,  45,  46,  47,  48,  50,  51, 
52,  53,  57,  58,  59,  60,  61,  62,  63, 
64,  65,  66,  67,  68,  70,  71,  72,  73, 
74,  75,  76,  78,  79,  80,  81,  83,  85, 
87,  8S,  90,  91,  92,  95,  96,  97,  100, 
101,  103,  104,  107,  108,  109,  112, 
114,  122,  124,  125,  136,  145,  157, 
163,  165,  169,  173,  174,  177,  180, 
196,  259,  260,  292,  349. 

Newman,  Mrs.,  28,  48,  49,  58,  59. 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  208,  215. 

Nicholson,  Rev.  Mr.,  131. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  181,  218. 

Norton,  Hon.  Mrs.,  216. 

O. 

Oakeley,  Rev.  F.,  104,  133,  148. 
Ogilvie,  Dr.,  27,  33,  37,  142  n,  162, 
184. 

Ogle,  Dr..  98,  188,  230,  235,  237. 
Ogle,  Dr.  John,  258. 
Oldham,  Mr.,  129. 
Overton,  Rev.  J.  G.,  15. 
Owen,  Professor,  176. 


Paget,  P.,  343. 
Paley,  248,  250. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  238,  244,  266. 
Palmer,  Rev.  W.  (of  Worcester),  51, 
113,  150. 


Palmer,  Rev.  W.  (of  Magdalen),  37, 
95,  96,  108,  111,  117,  118,  119, 
124,  135,  148,  194,  276,  291. 

Palmer,  Roundell,  (Lord  Selborne,) 
149,  223,  224,  338. 

Parr,  Dr.,  201. 

Park,  Judge,  47. 

Parker,  Mr.,  19. 

Pascal,  211. 

Patteson,  Judge,  101. 

Patteson,  Bishop,  337- 

Peard,  Miss,  337. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  46,  90,  127,  135, 

139,  141,  152. 
Peel,  Dean,  301. 
Percival,  Mr.,  216. 
Phillips,  L.,  136. 

Phillpotts,  Dr.  H.,  Bishop  of  Exeter. 
46,  92,  153,  163,  209,  262. 

Pio  Nono,  286. 

Poerio,  Signor,  281. 

Powell,  Baden,  158,  246,  248,  249. 

Powis,  Lord,  138,  139, 140,  152,  153. 

Price,  Professor  Bonamy,  22,  158. 
258,  334. 

Pugin,  Welby,  99,  100,  101,  149. 

Pusey,  Dr.,  27,  50,  57,  58,  60,  62, 
64,  66,  68,  69,  70,  71,  72,  74, 
76,  78,  80,  81,  88,  94,  95,  97,  108, 
111,  115,  119,  125,  129,  130,  141, 
142,  143,  144,  145,  156,  158,  163, 
169,  172,  181,  196,  202,  229,  2S6, 
290,  310,  330,  348. 

Pusey,  Mrs.,  58,  65,  73,  S4. 

Pusey,  Philip,  93. 

Pusey,  Philip,  M.P.,  46,  64. 

Pusey,  Rev.  William,  107,  259. 

R. 

Rassam,  Ormuzd,  194,  200//. 
Rawlinson,  Rev.  Canon,  223. 
Redesdale,  Lord,  12S,  215. 
Renan,  291. 
Richards,  Dr.,  113. 
Richmond,  W.  T.,  343  n. 
Rickards,  Rev.  S.,  55, 131,  132,  143, 

151,  152,  158,  186,  253,  263. 
Rickards,  Mrs.,  181,  264,  265,  343. 
Rivington,  Mr.,  109,  146,  148. 
Robertson,  Rev.  F.,  335. 
Rose,  Rev.  Edward,  294. 
Rose,  Rev.  Hugh  James,  33,  34,  37, 

39,  45,  52. 
Round,  C.  G.,  M.P.,  184. 


Index. 


363 


Round,  Rev.  Mr.,  27. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  188,  205,  206, 
207,  230,  244,  265. 

Rogers,  F.  (Lord  Blachford),  48,  50, 
58,  65,  74,  75,  80,  85,  95,  104, 105, 
122,  146,  163,  183,  184,  229,  259, 

290,  294,  349. 

Routh,  Dr.,  President  of  Magdalen, 
39,  55,  98,  116,  136,  169,  200  n, 
205,  208,  209,  219,  225,  226,  330. 

Ryder,  T.  D.,  26,  55,  78,  144. 

S. 

Sadler,  Miss,  25. 
Salisbury,  Lord,  335. 
Saunders,  Rev.  Dr.,  182. 
Scaliger,  10. 

Scott,  Rev.  W.,  150,  155,  165,  166, 

224,  228,  321. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  85,  312. 
Scott,  Thomas,  213,  284. 
Selwyn,  Bishop,  122,  292. 
Sewell  (Fellow  of  Magdalen),  97,  98, 

101. 

Sewell,  Miss,  91. 

Sewell,  Rev.  Wru.,  Fellow  of  Exeter, 
•   40,  71. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  265. 

Sharpe,  Martin,  179. 

Shepherd,  Mrs.,  194. 

Shipley,  Rev.  Orby,  266. 

Shrewsbury,  Lord,  100,  131. 

Sibthorpe,  Rev.  Mr.,  136,  149. 

Sidmouth,  Lord,  90. 

Small,  Mrs.,  93. 

Smith,  Adam,  201  n. 

Smith,    Goldwin,    239,    240,  248, 

320. 
Southey,  203. 

Spencer,  Rev.  G.  (Father  Ignatius), 
95. 

Spooner,  Mr.,  M.P.,  177. 
Spranger,  Mr. 
Spry,  Dr.  Hume,  55,  182. 
St.  John,  Rev.  A.,  146. 
Stanbridge,  J.  W.,  343  n. 
Stanley,  Dean,  193,  194,  240,  241  n, 
151,  255,  257,  259,  260,  262,  286, 

291,  292,  295,  300,  335. 
Stanley,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  195. 
Stowell,  Rev.  Hugh,  161. 
Symons,  Rev.  B.  P.,  D.D.,  112,  142  n, 

153,  154. 


T. 

Talbot,  Rev.  E.  S.,  343  n. 
Talfourd,  Serjeant,  153. 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  73. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  311. 
Thomas,  Vaughan,  54,  134,  188. 
Thurland,  Rev.,  F.,  106. 
Todd,  Dr.,  74,  299. 
Townsend,  Mr.,  291. 
Trench,  Archbishop,  257. 
Trower,  Rev.  Dr.,  55. 
Tyler,  Rev.  J.  Ended,  182. 
Tyndall,  John,  292. 

W. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  261. 

Walker,  Professor,  110. 

Wall,  Rev.  H.,  154,  183. 

Waller,  Mr.,  309. 

Walter,  John,  M.P.,  185. 

Ward,  George  (of  Balliol),  116,  118, 

123,  135,  137,  157,  161,  164,  165. 
Ward,  Mr.  (of  Trinity),  97,  98,  101. 
Wayland,  Mrs.,  3. 
Wayland,  Dr.,  117. 
Wayland,  Rev.  D.,  117,  242. 
Wellington,  Duchess  of,  252. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  38,  41,  109, 

128,  140,  152,  215. 
Wesley,  Dr.,  192. 
Westbury,  Lord,  159,  237. 
Wetherell,  Sir  C,  128. 
Whately,  Dr.,  6  n,  24,  53,  54,  164, 

205,  232,  258. 
!  Wheeler,  Rev.  Mr.,  129. 
'  Wheeler,  Rev.  Mr.,  235. 
Whitmarsh,  E.  D.,  D.C.L.,  343  «. 
Wilberforce,  Rev.  H,  24,  26,  42,  53, 

55,  63,  74,  78,  146,  165,  172,  334. 
Wilberforce,  Rev.  R.  J.,  25,  55,  154, 

192,  224. 

Wilberforce,  Bishop  S.,  22,  53,  55,  63, 
73,  74,  80,  81,  88,  95,  116, 131, 160, 
162,  188,  191,  219,  220,  221,  232. 

Williams,  George,  310. 

Williams,  Rev.  Isaac,  63,  97,  102, 
119,  120  n,  123,  124,  126,  154, 
216. 

Williams,  Rowland,  295. 
Williams,  R.,  M.P.,  65. 
Wilson,  Professor,  of  Exeter,  110. 
Wilson,  Rev.  R.  F.,  27,  65,  76,  174, 
240. 


364 


Index. 


Wilson,  Rev.  H.  B.,  116. 

Wilson,  Rev.  Mr.  (of  Magdalen),  119. 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,  117,  118,  119, 

131,  136,  137,  158,  206,  268. 
Wodehouse,  Rev.  the  Hon.  W.,  215. 
Wood,  Rev.  F.,  119. 
Wood,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Charles,  (Lord 

Halifax,)  52,  53,  65,  88. 
Woolcombe,  E.  C,  185. 
Wootton,  Dr.,  84,  148. 


Wordsworth,  Bishop  C,  131, 179,  259. 
Wordsworth,    Rev.   John  (Canon), 
343  n. 

Wordsworth,  W.,  28,  62,  92,  236. 
Wynter,  Dr.,  142  n,  153,  158. 

Y. 

Yonge,  Miss,  91,  334. 
Yonge,  Mr.,  77. 
Yonge,  Mrs.,  78. 


THE  END. 


fihmburgl)  Knibrrsitij  Ifrras 

THOMAS  AND  AP.CHIBALD  CONSTABLE,  PRINTERS  TO  HER  MAJESTY. 


